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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
August 30, 2020
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
In this time of Covid-19 and witnessing the violent treatment of protestors, it can seem hard to find our balance. Especially when the protestors are rising up against the violence and other horrible things being directed at black, brown and native people in the first place. Sometimes, we tend to think of balance as a sense of peace and calm, but perhaps balance also means accepting our fear, pain, anger and desire for justice in our world.
Chalice Lighting
This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine on systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.
Call to Worship
I arrive in the morning torn betwen a desire to improve or save the world and a desire to enjoy or savor the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
– E.B. White
Affirming Our Mission
Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.
Learn more about Beloved Community at this link. – The King Center
Meditation Reading
DON’T JUST DO SOMETHING, SIT THERE
– Sylvia BernsteinEquanimity doesn’t mean keeping things even. It is the capacity to return to balance in the midst of an alert response to life. I don’t want to be constantly calm. The cultural context I grew up in and the relational life I live both call for a passionate engaged response. I laugh and I cry and I’m glad that I do. What I value is the capacity to be balanced between times.
Sermon
Some days you eat salads and go to the gym. Some days you eat cupcakes and refuse to put on pants.
It’s called balance.
That’s a social media meme by a very spiritual and wise woman named Rita. O. Jackson.
I loved it when our senior minister Meg sent it to me, because I think that in a humorous way, it so perfectly illustrates one of the seeming paradoxes of our topic today – finding balance, equanimity, harmony in life.
Sometimes we have to to through feeling out of sorts, experience the difficult emotions in order to grow and find even greater life balance.
I’ll come back to this later; however, I think I would be remiss, if in examining balance, I were not to begin by exploring the social unrest, the struggles for justice and the state-sanctioned violence being directed at those rising up to demand justice that are happening in our country right now.
Justice is often represented, symbolized, by Lady Justice holding up the scales of equity. This image is rooted in ancient Egyptian, Greek and, later, Roman Goddesses, who all carried out concepts associated with justice.
It’s interesting that our ancient ancestors seemed to think that females would best embody the balance of justice.
Today in the United States, those scales of justice are greatly imbalanced. They are imbalanced related to gender, gender identity, class, race, sexual orientation and so much more.
On one side of the scale, it is heavily weighted toward those who enjoy privilege, power, wealth and other resources.
The other side of the scale it is swinging haphazardly in the air, because there are too many folks for whom oppression affords them far less justice, far less privilege, far less access to power, wealth and other resources.
We have folks that own more than one mansion, yachts and expensive cars in the dozens, many of which they rarely if ever drive.
Do folks really need all of that, when in the meantime, we have people losing their housing, unable to provide the necessities of life for their families, unable to access healthcare when they or their loved ones get sick?
All of this greatly exacerbated by the pandemic, while the US Senate does nothing to keep their aide going.
But perhaps the scales of justice are out of equilibrium nowhere more greatly than in the systemic racism that pervades the very institutions of our society.
In particular, protests have arisen over law enforcement’s use of lethal force against black, brown and native American people.
In response to these demonstrations, the police have often inflicted violence against mostly peaceful protestors. They’ve labeled the protests as riots, even though much of the violence has in fact been committed by white supremacists who infiltrate the protests and initiate violence and other acts of destruction.
AND, even if that’s not always the case, as my colleague Misha Sanders recently wrote, “‘It’s sad that the police shot that man, but that doesn’t excuse burning things down.’ Stop right there. How about this instead: ‘It’s sad that things are burning down, but the police shouldn’t have shot that man.’ There, that’s better.”
Most recently, we have witnessed the police shooting of Jacob Blake after some kind of domestic disturbance. They shot him seven times in the back in front of his three young children as he tried to get into his SUV. He is currently paralyzed from the waist down and fighting for his life. Yet, the police have him handcuffed to his hospital bed.
We don’t know all the facts yet. Some reports claim that Blake may have had a knife. Still, how can that possibly justify shooting him in the back in front of his small children?
Funny how we never seem to hear about police shooting a white person in the back (or kneeling on their neck until they suffocate).
Of course, some folks claim that this is because of bias in news reporting.
No. The statistics have no bias. The statistics tells us we don’t hear about police shooting a white person, even if they do have a knife, because the police are so much less likely do so with white folks.
They are far more likely to use deescalation techniques instead.
And so we have to ask ourselves why, instead of using these same deescalation techniques, police so often use lethal force against our black, brown and native American siblings.
The scales of justice are profoundly out of balance.
Lady justice is weeping.
So, to build the Beloved Community, we must struggle to right these imbalances. And to sustain this struggle, I think requires us to try to seek harmony in our own lives. Creating balance may mean, we have to both savor and save the world.
And finding such balance is also a part of our own well-being and life-satisfaction.
Recently, I posted on Facebook, asking, “where are you finding balance in life these days?”
Here is a summary of many of the responses:
- Getting outside, enjoying nature, gardening, hikes and walks, observing beauty.
- Community, relationship, family, friends, loved ones, fellow church members.
- Working out, water aerobics, various other forms of exercise.
- Reading, learning new concepts and skills, listening to music, enjoying the arts.
- Meditation, Yoga, Tai Chi, mindfulness.
- Stopping for rest, taking naps.
- Giving oneself projects, clearing out living spaces of what is not needed, setting up new routines to replace those we lost when the pandemic hit.
Notice how many of these could be thought of as spiritual practices.
Now, in all fairness, some of the Facebook comments ran in bit different direction, as epitomized by the following: “Balance? What balance? I’m an anxious ball of ever-evolving existential crisis!” And, “I’m no longer sure what balance means. Truthfully, I’d be much better balanced with a haircut.” And I loved this one, “I go lie down in the garden. You can’t fall off. It smells complicated. The bugs are good company. Sometimes I even lie face up!”
Several other folks mentioned a feeling of being on a seesaw or rollercoaster, experiencing ups and downs, feelings of trying to do too much and then not doing enough, tipping too hard in one direction and then too hard in the other.
These folks expressed a sense of only glimpsing balance in mid-swing of the seesawing.
And I think this is important too. Especially during challenging times such as these, we will have moments…or days…or weeks when we feel out of balance. That’s only natural. How can parents trying to decide what to do about their children’s education while often trying to work, maintain a home and find a moment for self care not feel out of sorts sometimes?
The thing is, we’re often sold this mirage that having balance means always feeling calm, collected and serene.
Some days though, we need to eat cupcakes and refuse to put on pants.
And yet, life can seem imbalanced when we experience feelings like discomfort about facing uncertainty, sorrow at witnessing so many lives lost, anger over the proliferation of injustices.
I wonder though, if these emotions might also be potential sources of growth – a new, richer sense of balance.
Now, this certainly is not always the case. We have to acknowledge in some instances that things are just bad.
Sometimes though, discomfort can lead to transformation.
I think, especially during difficult times, we can also feel really imbalanced when we judge ourselves too harshly – set unrealistic expectations for ourselves.
I suspect that this may be especially true among Unitarian Universalists.
I know it is among me, myself and I!
To counter this, I turn to my favorite social work professor and author, Brene Brown.
Brown encourages us to realize that other folks are “doing the best they can with the tools that they have.”
Maybe, we can extend that same graciousness to ourselves.
We are enough. We, each of us, are doing the best we can with the tools that we have.
And we can still try to expand our toolkit, while also offering ourselves that grace along the way.
There is so much more I would love to say about balance; however, in the interest of leaving you time to balance the activities of your day, I’ll close by returning to those Facebook comments about finding balance through community, relationship, loved ones.
I think this applies very deeply with our church community.
We can help each other know harmony.
My beloveds, we are sacred companions on a holy journey together, as we seek to know and co-create the divine.
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