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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
March 18, 2018
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
austinuu.org

Spirituality may be even more important to us if we are facing challenges to our quality of life, or even our own mortality. How do we face difficult decisions in ways that maximize our agency, quality of life, and our ability to maintain our spirituality?

Call to Worship

We enter, now, into this place of renewal.

We join together, now, in this community that sustains and upholds.

We imagine, now, a world with more compassion, more justice, more love.

We worship, now, that which is greater than us, and that holds our aspirations, our fortitude, our faith, our hope.

Now, we enter into this shared spirit of gratitude and community.

Now, we worship, together.

Reading

CHRISTMAS AT MIDLIFE
-Mary Anne Perrone

I am no longer waiting for a special occasion; I burn the best candles on ordinary days.

I am no longer waiting for the house to be clean; I fill it with people who understand that even dust is Sacred.

I am no longer waiting for everyone to understand me; It’s just not their task

I am no longer waiting for the perfect children; my children have their own names that burn as brightly as any star.

I am no longer waiting for the other shoe to drop; It already did, and I survived.

I am no longer waiting for the time to be right; the time is always now.

I am no longer waiting for the mate who will complete me; I am grateful to be so warmly, tenderly held.

I am no longer waiting for a quiet moment; my heart can be stilled whenever it is called.

I am no longer waiting for the world to be at peace; I unclench my grasp and breathe peace in and out.

I am no longer waiting to do something great; being awake to carry my grain of sand is enough.

I am no longer waiting to be recognized; I know that I dance in a holy circle.

I am no longer waiting for Forgiveness. I believe, I Believe.

Sermon

When we first got the call, we did not realize how serious things were. Our niece, Paige, had gone in for an adjustment to her pacemaker but suffered cardiac arrest during the procedure.

Paige was more like a sister to my spouse, Wayne, and for that matter to me. Her mother, and Wayne’s oldest sister, had been a lot older than Wayne. So much so, in fact, that Paige was much closer in age to us. She was almost exactly the same age as me.

Wayne made immediate plans to fly to where Paige was in the hospital. Not knowing quite how serious things really were, we agreed that I would stay behind.

The next day, Wayne called me. He let me know that Paige had died and been revived more than once after she had gone into cardiac arrest.

Her higher cognitive functioning was gone. Her kidneys were failing. Only the machines they had attached to her were keeping her body alive.

Wayne and Paige’s younger brother and one of Wayne’s other sisters (Paige’s aunt) were there. Her younger brother was faced with making the agonizing decision of whether or not to turn off the machines.

The family talked. He told the doctors to turn the machines off – to let her go.

Wayne called me later that same day to let me know she had died.

This is a scene that plays out all too often in hospitals across the country. We have the technology to keep people physically alive long after the person, the spirit, the mind is no longer. And even when consciousness is still there, we can far too easily trade away quality of life for vague hopes of extended life that too often go unfulfilled.

In Paige’s case, she had left a real spiritual gift to herself and to those of us who loved her. Perhaps because she had developed congestive heart failure at a relatively early age, she had put into place the documents that detailed her wishes should various medical circumstances develop. She had created a will that specified how she wished her values to continue to be expressed in the world after her death.

As importantly, she had discussed these wishes with key members of her family.

So when the time came, her family, her younger brother already knew what she would want them to do. I can only imagine how much harder it might have been had they not known.

Paige left our world having known that she had empowered the people she loved to enact her wishes in circumstances where she could not express them herself. There is an agency to this that too that to me has a spiritual element to it.

I share this story partially because too often aging, death, disability are topics we avoid.

And yet who here this morning is immortal?

And I have more bad news. We are all only temporarily abled. Like all complex systems, wear and tear, illness and accidents will eventually begin to break us down.

I think Paige’s story is a great example of someone who did not avoid these inevitabilities – of preparing ahead of time so that her own agency reached beyond even her physical longevity.

In his book, “Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End”, Dr. Atul Gawande addresses how the medical model for handling aging and disability that we have adopted can take away that agency – can rob of us of the spiritual development that might otherwise be possible as we age, face fatal illness and/or disabilities.

He talks about alternatives that would prioritize quality of life over absolute safety and squeezing out a few more days of life.

Now before I go on, I want to acknowledge that there are likely people who are confronted with one or more of these challenges here today or whom have loved ones who are. Know that I know one of the reasons we avoid these topics is because they are difficult. They are emotional. Please know that I am available to you to talk further later on if need be.

My fellow Unitarian Universalist Minister, Jennifer L. Brower, outlines a number of spiritual tasks and opportunities for spiritual growth that we encounter as we age, many of which we also face if confronted with a fatal illness or the loss of one or more of our physical abilities. She defines spiritual in a way that I really love, so rather than paraphrase, I want to read you her actual words:

“If we understand the ‘spirit’ to mean the animating or vital force within each person — ‘spirit'” derived from the Latin spiritus, meaning ‘soul, courage, vigor, breath’ — then the spirit is our vital center or our core. And the ‘spiritual’ are those things which support that center; those things which enliven us and give us a sense of courage, or heart, for our living. Spiritual experiences are those events in life and moments in relationships which attune us to that vital or animating force within and which give greater meaning and depth to our day-to-day living.”

As we face aging, end of life issues, disability or some combination of these, we often need these spiritual experiences even more so. They can help us make sense of what is happening to us, find meaning and agency even within our new circumstances and maintain the relationships that sustain and comfort us.

As I mentioned earlier though, the problem, Dr. Gawande addresses in his book is that our “medicalized” model for handling disability, fatal illness and caring for the aged can and often does take away our very ability to engage our vital center, our spirit.

He tells heartbreaking stories of people in nursing homes in a room with someone they do not know and placed on a schedule that prioritizes the nursing home’s need for safety and efficiency over the residents’ agency and quality of life. Understandably, family members also often prioritize the safety of their loved ones without being aware of how extreme safety measures can so restrict quality of life.

Likewise, he tells wrenching stories of people with a fatal illness being given treatments and medical procedures with a false hope of extended life, at the cost of such treatments themselves causing misery and robbing them of quality of life. Too often, he asserts, healthcare providers find it difficult to describe the true direness of the situation and end up offering additional medical treatment instead.

Dr. Gawande points out that it does not have to be this way. He describes true assisted living facilities. One where each person has their own apartment where they can lock their door if they wish. They can establish their own priorities regarding their safety versus their agency. If they want to risk having a cocktail at night and end up falling down because of it, it is their decision. Regardless, the assistance will be there is they need it.

He describes other facilities that feature individual bedrooms and bathrooms arranged around a homelike central living and kitchen area. Again, agency is prioritized over safety. The residents make their own decisions and schedules to the extent that they are able. Pets and other life are allowed within the facilities.

Similarly, Dr. Gawande describes the hospice movement that has arisen in the U.S. and tells of how it has given people facing death the chance for a greater quality of life and has reduced their suffering. Hospice staff can also greatly help family members through the decline and loss of their loved one.

One study even found that people who went into hospice care actually survived longer on average than people in similar circumstances who were put on aggressive therapies.

My stepfather, Ty, was in my life for over 40 years. In many ways, he was more my father than my actual dad. He too developed congestive heart failure. For Ty it was in late 60s and early 70s. I am so thankful that the last trip he was able to make was to be here at this church for my ordination just over three years ago.

Ty’s condition quickly deteriorated after that though, to the point to where his heart was no longer pumping sufficiently. He had trouble breathing. His feet swelled with fluids.

He and my mom went to Houston and spoke with a specialist who talked with Ty about having an artificial heart transplant.

I am also so thankful that upon his return back to the Beaumont area where they lived, Ty spoke with his regular cardiologist, who had the courage to tell Ty about how low the chances that the transplant would be successful. He told about the many ways that the transplant procedure itself could go wrong with a person in Ty’s condition and could lead to even greater misery.

Eventually, Ty decided not to have the procedure – to live out whatever time he might have left with as much quality of life as could be made possible with palliative treatment only.

Those were difficult conversation he and my mom and the family had, but they were necessary conversations. They let Ty have agency and enjoy what he could even in his waning days.

I remember my mom calling me one time – I can tell you this because she and I have talked about it – she called me worried that she was making Ty mad by pestering him about his continued cigarette smoking. He had been a lifelong smoker and continued it even after deciding he would seek no further treatment for his heart other than hospice care.

I was like, “Mom, leave him alone. He enjoys it. What harm’s it gonna do now?”

She let it go.

I remember visiting mom and Ty near the end of his life. Ty was in his favorite reclining chair in their living room. Home hospice care had him on a pretty high dose of morphine because he was having a lot of trouble breathing and it helped keep him from suffering because of it. He could not talk much.

Still, he greeted me with that famous smile of his that could still light up the room, and after exchanging pleasantries, I sat down in the chair next to him.

We just sat for a while together, not saying much and even in our silent being together saying everything that mattered.

It was for me a spiritual experience, and I hope and think it was for Ty too.

Again, I share Paige and Ty’s stories with you because I think that they both demonstrate one of life’s important spiritual practices.

They put their wishes in writing. They had the difficult conversations with loved ones before it was late.

And this is something we all can do that will give us agency later on when we might not otherwise be able to exercise it and, as it was with Paige, can also be a great gift to those we love.

Getting our wills together that express how we would like our values to be expressed beyond our time here one earth, creating our health care directives and power of attorney documents and perhaps most importantly having these discussions with our loved ones now, so that this is already all in place when need it is actually a spiritual endeavor.

While there are absolute guarantees, having those difficult discussions with loved ones about what types medical procedures and life support we would want i under what conditions makes it much more likely our wishes will be fulfilled and that our loved ones can do so with far less anguish.

Letting our loved ones know what types of assisted living facility we would want and again under what circumstances can ease the decision making process later and give us the best chance for a higher quality of life as we reach the end stages of life. Would you prefer agency over safety? Have you purchased a long-term care policy for in home care? If so, do your loved ones know all of this?

Here are the additional spiritual challenges and growth possibilities we may go through as we age or face physical decline as outlined by Rev. Brower:

• Bereavement – learning to cope with the loss of significant persons in our lives and those who had been with us during earlier, life-shaping events and yet remaining able to form new, close, intimate relationships.
• Redefining our sense of purpose in life – what do we do to find meaning after we retire – after raising a family is no longer part of our purpose in life?
• Reconciling our sense of self with a body and mind that may begin failing us in some way.
• Reviewing our life – are there things we have left undone, unsaid, unresolved that we might like to address?
• Resolving our questions about the nature of God, or what is ultimate or the nature of human existence, as well as resolving anxieties about death and the process of dying.
• Our relationship to religion and our religious community. For older and disabled folks, just getting to church on Sunday, even if given a ride, can be a difficult if not almost impossible chore.

Yet the desire for religious community often remains strong. I am so glad that Rev. Ellis at this church goes to the Westminster assisted living facility and provides a worship service once per month for several of our members who reside there.

Spirituality and agency remain basic to our human needs throughout life, even as we face our own physical limitations and our own mortality.

By working to advocate for a society that treats these as human needs and not simply a medical problem, we can give ourselves and others the best chance to be able to meet those needs.

By knowing what spiritual challenges may lie ahead for us, by doing our best to prepare for them, by having the difficult but holy conversations around them with our loved ones, by making our wishes known, we may best be able to turn those challenges into lifelong spiritual growth.

Thank you, Paige. Thank you, Ty, for helping me learn this.

Amen.

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them here.

Most sermons delivered at the First UU Church of Austin during the past 18 years are available online through this website. You will find links to them in the right sidebar menu labeled Sermons. The Indexes link leads to tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on the topic to go to a sermon.

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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
March 11, 2018
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
austinuu.org

Neuroscience and other research is learning more and more about what is happening in our brains and in our bodies during spiritual / transcendent / flow / peak experiences. Organizations from the Navy Seals to Google have been exploring ways to help their people reach these altered states more easily and more quickly, as such experiences can increase creativity, productivity, and team cohesion.

Call to Worship

Now let us worship together.
Now let us celebrate our highest values.

Transcendence
To connect with wonder and awe of the unity of life.

Community
To connect with joy, sorrow, and service with those whose lives we touch.

Compassion
To treat ourselves and others with love.

Courage
To live lives of honesty, vulnerability, and beauty.

Transformation
To pursue the growth that changes our lives and heals our world.

Now we raise up that which we hold as ultimate and larger than ourselves.
Now we worship, together.

Readings

THE NIGHT HOUSE
– Billy Collins

Every day the body works in the fields of the world
Mending a stone wall
Or swinging a sickle through the tall grass-
The grass of civics, the grass of money-
And every night the body curls around itself
And listens for the soft bells of sleep.

But the heart is restless and rises
From the body in the middle of the night,
Leaves the trapezoidal bedroom
With its thick, pictureless walls
To sit by herself at the kitchen table
And heat some milk in a pan.

And the mind gets up too, puts on a robe
And goes downstairs, lights a cigarette,
And opens a book on engineering.
Even the conscience awakens
And roams from room to room in the dark,
Darting away from every mirror like a strange fish.

And the soul is up on the roof
In her nightdress, straddling the ridge,
Singing a song about the wildness of the sea
Until the first rip of pink appears in the sky.
Then, they all will return to the sleeping body
The way a flock of birds settles back into a tree,

Resuming their daily colloquy,
Talking to each other or themselves
Even through the heat of the long afternoons.
Which is why the body-the house of voices-
Sometimes puts down its metal tongs, its needle, or its pen
To stare into the distance,

To listen to all its names being called
Before bending again to its labor.

THE GUEST HOUSE
– Jellaludin Rumi

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Sermon

In a remote area of northeastern Afghanistan, an elite team of the already elite Navy SEALS special forces was on the move. Known as the Special Development Group, or DEVGRU, their mission was to capture Al-Wazu, an Al-Qadea terrorist who had recently escaped a U.S. detention facility. Al-Wazu could provide invaluable intelligence, so it was essential that the team capture him alive.

As they moved stealthily toward a compound of buildings where they knew Al-Wazu was hiding, a switch flipped within each of them. Their brainwave patterns began to synchronize. The composition of the neurochemicals in their brains changed in similar ways.

Suddenly, they were a collective, not individual actors. In this state of altered consciousness, this group flow state, they were able to move both quickly and quietly, communicating without verbalizations and with minimal physical gestures.

Their movements became synchronized. Their division of scanning for potential enemies, side to side, ahead and behind became automatic. The person best positioned to take leadership changed as needed without discussion or debate.

As they approached the compound, they automatically split into teams that would surround it, as well as an assault team that would enter the the compound and attempt the capture.

The first room the assault team entered was empty, but the next room was crowded with armed guards mixed in with unarmed women and children. It was vital that the assault team be able to disarm the guards with as little fire fighting and unarmed casualties as possible.

And in their state of altered consciousness, they were able to do exactly that – read even minute facial expressions or body movements; sweeping in to capture each of the guards quickly and disarm them.

Leaving a couple of their team behind to watch over the guards and civilians, the remainder of the team entered the next room, only to immediately encounter Al-Wazu himself, sitting in a chair, an AK-47 rifle in his hands.

It would have been so easy to react immediately and fire upon him. In a normal state of consciousness, anyone of the team might have quite rationally thought, “better to strike immediately than to give him time to open fire with the automatic weapon in his hands”.

But they didn’t. In theIr altered state, each of them had processed almost instantaneously that Al-Wazu’s eyes were closed. He was fast asleep.

They made the capture without firing a shot, without any bloodshed.

And they could do so because they had been selected and trained for this ability to enter into a group flow state.

Back in the U.S., an artist was installing her interactive sculpture, sound and light experiential art piece.

As she worked, she lost all sense of time. Time seemed to slow or perhaps to just lose all meaning.

Her sense of self dissolved into an experience of being part of something larger than her – something that was luring her to create the piece of art that was coming to be all around her. The act of creation felt effortless, and she felt a great sense of richness, a vividness, an aliveness.

In this flow state, she experienced a sense of right place and well being. She felt a great sense of belonging and connection, even though at the present moment she was physically completely alone.

If someone could have scanned her brainwave patterns at that very moment, they would have looked almost identical to those of that DEVGRU team during their mission in Afghanistan.

Interestingly, though she would not have used this same terminology, she had designed her art installation to stimulate virtually the same neurological responses.

In a lab in another part of the country, a neuroscientist who specialized in neurotheology was studying long-term meditators and other spiritual practitioners to examine what was happening with their brainwaves, neurochemicals, breathing, heart rates, etc. when they entered a state of altered consciousness that these practices could bring about.

These states have been described as nirvana, transcendent, an experience of the holy and in many other ways depending upon the religion involved.

Had this scientist been able to compare his neurological and biological findings from these spiritual practitioners with our artist and our Navy seals team, once again, he would have discovered remarkably similar results.

The neuroscientist as well as many others have also taken these findings and created biofeedback mechanisms that can help newer meditators, for example, reach the desired state of altered consciousness much more quickly than the years of practice it can otherwise sometimes take. By providing instantaneous feedback on heart rate, brainwave patterns, and the like, scientists have been able to help people more quickly focus their spiritual practices.

And this may be consequential, because other research has found that more frequent experiences of such altered states are associated with increased life satisfaction, a greater sense of belonging, increased compassion and empathy and higher levels of cooperative social behavior to name just a few of the potential benefits.

Maybe that is why Google has worked with Stephen Cotler and Jamie Wheal of the Flow Genome Project to install a prototype research and training center dedicated to helping Google’s employees experience such altered states of consciousness.

They call it “Flow Dojo”. Cute, huh?

Now, it turns out, experiences of art, music, nature, beauty, extreme physical activity, strong connections with others and certain types of sound and visual stimuli can also spontaneously generate these altered states of consciousness.

So, the Flow Dojo” prototype combines training in classical techniques such as meditation with biofeedback, art, music and the like, along with machines that can safely simulate the gravitational, centrifugal and other forces associated with extreme sports.

You see, while extreme sports can be be one of the most powerful ways of inducing an altered state of consciousness, a flow or transcendent or peak experience, they can also be, by their very nature, very dangerous. Take for example, wing suit gliding through mountain caverns and caves.

This is a sport wherein one straps on a suit that creates more bodily surface areas by stretching fabric between the legs and under the arms, essentially creating winglike structures that allow one to glide like a bird after launching from a high altitude, in this case swooping through the narrow, rock wall crevices of mountainous caverns and caves.

You can probably already imagine the potential problem. It is far too easy to make a navigational error that sends the extreme sports enthusiast smack into one of those rock walls.

For me, smashing into a rock wall at a high rate of speed followed by falling to my death on the rocky ground hundreds to thousands of feet below, would just ruin any peak experience I might just have had.

So the Flow Genome Project and Google provide machines that allow folks to experience the state of mind induced by this and other extreme sports but to do so safely.

Why are Google and other companies investing in how to help their employees experience these altered states of consciousness more deeply and more often?

Why are the Navy Seals and other areas of the military hacking transcendence?

Because it turns out the advantages they can convey upon individuals are also beneficial to the workplace and in combat situations.

These altered states have been shown to increase creativity in the workplace even after employees have returned to a more normal state of consciousness.

The sense of selflessness, timelessness, effortlessness and richness that occurs while in a state of flow, like I mentioned with our artist earlier, can also create a sense of cohesiveness and cooperation in the work place, increase job satisfaction, enhance productivity and deepen commitment.

Google employees have reported that after undergoing training at the Flow Dojo center, they found themselves more often slipping into a flow state at work and at home without even trying.

Now I should mention that Cotler and Wheal, in their book, “Stealing Fire” and elsewhere, describe certain types of excessive sex, drugs and extreme breath holding that can also induce an experience of transcendence.

To my knowledge, Google hasn’t been training their employees in these areas, and I should note that I am in no way recommending excessive sex, drugs, extreme breath holding or any combination thereof as a means of obtaining transcendence.

And no, I don’t know how “excessive” is defined in this context.

Researchers also warn that there are also potential dangers in all of this knowledge we are gathering about what happens in our brains and bodies when we experience a flow state.

For example, advertisers could insert in their ads visual, sound and other cues that tend to induce these brain wave patterns, to manipulate us into associating I their product with the heightened sense of wellbeing that often results.

Extreme sports and some of the drugs that can lead to experiencing flow, can also be highly addictive.

It is possible that such altered states of consciousness can themselves become addictive as people learn to more easily enter into them. Their is some early evidence of this.

The thing is, we can’t function if we live in these states of transcendent experience all of the time. The idea is that we carry out of them values and understandings that enhance our day to day functioning and state of mind. Jack Cornfield, American Buddhist, author and teacher writes about this in his book, “After the Ecstasy, the Laundry.“

As a minister, I worry that these scientists, the military and Google learning more and more about how to hack transcendence are going to put me right out of my job.

In fact, I was going to call this sermon, “Google is Really Pissing Me Off,” but I wasn’t sure if I could say that in the sanctuary.

Oops. Actually I think that these things we are learning from science can help inform how we do church and can supplement and enhance our personal spiritual practices.

Maybe I’ll have one of those extreme sports contraptions installed in the back parking lot.

And though we are learning much about what is going on neurologically and biologically when we have these experience, for me at least, this in no way robs them of a spiritual dimension nor does it remove a sense of awe, wonder and mystery.

We still have much to explore about why we have this ability to enter these altered states and why it seems beneficial to us to do so. This may be yet another area where religion and science have the potential to inform rather than be in conflict with one another. After all, it is entirely possible that religious rites and rituals may well have been among the earliest ways we learned to hack transcendence.

And I do think that especially for us as Unitarian Universalist, these peak or transcendent experiences are a core element of our faith going back at least to our transcendentalist forbearers.

We list them as the first of the six sources of our faith. Here in this church, we list first among our religious values that we read together earlier – “Transcendence – To connect with wonder and awe of the unity of life”.

So the rituals, music, sermons, readings, fellowship opportunities and other activities we engage in here at the church are intended at least in part to help lead us into this type of experiences.

I know for me, very often our music program moves me into an altered and wonderful state of being. Another recent example was when Meg talked about the “me too” movement and then offered a ritual folks could participate in afterwards.

It was moving and powerful and difficult and cathartic, and I suspect for many of us it forever altered our consciousness about the subject.

And I think that a key reason we seek such experiences when we have gathered as a religious community is that they can help move us toward and even into another of our religious values transformation, which we define as “To pursue the growth that changes our lives and heals our world”.

In describing transformation this way, we are basically talking about creating the Beloved Community.

Now the term, “Beloved Community” get used fairly frequently in religious circles. Today though, I am using it with specific meaning.

Part of that meaning is the community of love, compassion, empathy and care we work to create here at the church. We do so through our covenant – a set of promises we make to one another about how we will walk together in the ways of love.

And this is not a sappy, sugary-sweet view of beloved community. It acknowledges that creating such a religious community is hard work. We need our covenant precisely because we will fail each other and ourselves sometimes, and our covenant helps us get back to the ways of love and right relationship.

We do so because it is worth it. As one theologian put it, the divine is to be found in the messiness of making and maintaining loving religious community together.

Another part of the meaning of Beloved Community is our participation-in a much broader movement to create more loving and just relationships and institutions in our larger world. This is the Beloved Community which Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King envisioned.

Here is how one of King’s followers described Beloved Community, “an inclusive, interdependent space based on love, justice, compassion, responsibility, shared power and a deep and abiding respect for all people, places and things that radically transforms individuals and restructures institutions.”

So, beloved community calls us to dismantle racist systems and institutions for instance – indeed it calls us to work for justice against all forms of oppression as well as the betterment of all living creatures and our environment.

It requires transformation that changes our lives and heals our world.

“An inclusive space based upon love, justice, compassion, responsibility, shared power and a deep and abiding respect for all people, places and things… “

Wow. I think creating that might be yet another way we could hack transcendence, radically transforming ourselves and revealing our path toward restructuring our institutions to benefit all people and our world.

That is transcendence beckoning us toward transformation.

That is the power of Beloved Community.

And amen to that.

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them here.

Most sermons delivered at the First UU Church of Austin during the past 18 years are available online through this website. You will find links to them in the right sidebar menu labeled Sermons. The Indexes link leads to tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on the topic to go to a sermon.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
February 18 2018
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
austinuu.org

We have experiences in life that we remember long afterwards and that often were moments that changed us. Are there common characteristics that create such moments? If so, can we create more such experiences in our lives?

Call to Worship
In This Moment – by Chris Jimmerson

In this moment, we gather together, in this our beloved community.

In this moment, we gather to know the power and beauty of ritual, music and the blending together the loving presence we each have to offer.

In this moment, we gather to glimpse that which is greater than us but of which we are part.

In this moment, we gather to worship together.

Reading
Moments – by Chris Jimmerson

The instances that capture us, hold us in stillness, rootedness, timelessness:
A glimpse of an eagle soaring high above,
The gentle touch and soothing words of a loved one just when we need them,
Sunsets, rainbows, waterfalls, mountain vistas, peaceful shorelines,
The surprise visit, the surprise act of kindness, the unearned blessing, the offering of a blessing to another.
These and so many more are the powerful moments that are waiting for us to recognize them and immerse ourselves within them.
And beyond these, are the momentous moments we have yet to co-create together.

Sermon

Chris Hurn was trying to console his young son. The boy was distraught and could not go to sleep because he had accidentally left behind his best friend and constant companion, a giant, stuffed giraffe named Joshie when leaving a family vacation at the Ritz Carlton on Amelia Island Florida.

Like many a desperate parent before him, Mr. Hurn considered all of his options and decided on the best one available to him.

He lied.

“Joshie is fine,” he told his distraught little boy, “He’s just taking an extra-long vacation at the resort.”

His son seemed to buy it and eventually drifted off to sleep.

Later that night, Hurn spoke over the phone with an employee at the Ritz Carlton and to his great relief learned that Joshie the Giraffe had been found. Hurn fessed up to the white lie he had told his son and asked if the folks at the Ritz Carlton could do him a favor and send a picture of Joshie vacationing at the hotel when they returned him.

The next day, Joshie returned home resting comfortably on a plush Ritz Carlton towel in his overnight delivery package surrounded by a Ritz Carlton frisbee and nurf football, along with a binder full of pictures.

Joshie the Giraffe lounging by the hotel pool.

Joshie driving a golf cart.

Another picture was of Joshie hanging out with the hotel parrot, and yet another featured Joshie in the spa, complete with cucumber slices over his eyes. There was even one of Joshie monitoring the security cameras in the hotel’s control room.

Needless to say Chris Hurn and his wife were thrilled and their young son was ecstatic.

Employees at the Ritz Carleton had created a wonderful experience for the Hurns and most likely for themselves also in the process.

Now, you might think our story would end here, but no, there is a part two.

A couple of years later, Joshie the Giraffe had gone missing once again, after attending a soccer tournament with the family. Once again, the Hurn’s son was distraught over the loss and having trouble going to sleep at night.

During this time the family happened have planned another vacation at the same Ritz Carlton.

One morning they mentioned how wonderfully the hotel had treated them when Joshie the Giraffee had been left behind and were surprised to learn that every employee at the hotel seemed to know the story of Joshie. The hotel employees were saddened to learn that Joshie had recently disappeared again.

Later that afternoon someone knocked on the door of their room and handed the Hurn’s son a bag with his name on it. The bag contained another stuffed giraffe with a small note attached introducing him as “Jeffie,” a long-lost cousin of Joshie’s. The note said that Joshie had gone off on a worldwide adventure, and Jeffie would be honored to be the Hurn’s son’s new companion. It also said that Jeffie liked warm hugs.

Once again, the staff at the hotel had created an amazing moment for the Hurn family.

The Hurn’s story is a really fun example of what Chip and Dan Heath call defining or powerful moments in their book, The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact.

We all have such powerful moments in our lives – meaningful experiences that stand out in our memories and that sometimes can change the direction of our lives.

What I love about their use of the Hurn’s story as one example of a powerful moment is that it demonstrates that such moments don’t necessarily have to occur during one of life’s major events or involve some spiritual/religious transcendent experience, though these of course are also often defining moments.

They can also be smaller moments, like when the employees of that hotel made extra efforts to create two wonderful experiences for the Hurn family.

Here is another example of such a moment.

Several years ago, my spouse Wayne and I were vacationing in Switzerland. We had rented a car and decided to make a drive over a mountain pass in the Swiss Alps. We had reached almost as high as the road went, when we entered one last small valley before the mountain rose sharply to its peak. There was a small village in the valley. The houses and buildings looked exactly as one might imagine for Switzerland Ñ wooded exterior walls with plant boxes full of greenery and flowers hanging below each window.

There was a large heard of cattle in the village, and the cows were unfenced, roaming freely around the little town. Each cow was wearing a large bell.

And suddenly, it began to snow.

The snow settled in like a fog, limiting how far we could see, wrapping us tightly into the village. It began covering everything around us in a stunningly beautiful crystalline white blanket.

I pulled our car over to the side of the road.

We could still see light glowing from some of the windows of the houses, when through the quiet of the snowfall, the cows began shaking their heads and ringing their bells. We opened our car windows slightly to hear them better, and sat, enshrouded by the little Swiss village at the top of the mountain, listening to the bells ringing and watching the snow fall.

It was like suddenly finding ourselves in the front cover of a Hallmark card.

That’s the thing about our powerful moments. Sometimes they can seem absolutely magical!

Of course, being good, reason and science based Unitarians, we know that there is not really any magic involved.

Although, looking back on that experience, my Universalist side really wants to believe that there might have been at least a little magic going on.

Don’t tell anyone.

We actually had another much less positive moment when we realized we had to drive down the other side of the mountain in what had become quiet a snowstorm. Wayne’s oh so helpful comment was, “If you kill us by driving off the side of this mountain, I am going to be very mad at you.”

Now, let me tie this back to the Heath’s research, in which they found that powerful moments are created from one or more of the following elements:

Elevation: “Defining moments rise above the everyday. They provoke not just transient happiness, like laughing at a friend’s joke, but memorable delight”. For example:

Opening the overnight package to find not only Joshie the Giraffe but extra gifts and a photo book full of Joshie enjoying all the pleasures of a resort hotel;

The mesmerizing sensory experience of bells ringing amidst an entrancing snow fall in a beautiful village nestled in a valley near the top of a mountain.

Insight: “Defining moments can rewire our understanding of ourselves or the world”.

The Hurn’s faith in the potential goodness of other people was no doubt enhanced by their experience with the employees of that Ritz Carlton, and I’ll bet they instantly developed a brand loyalty too!

Experiences like the one Wayne and I shared in that snowfall remind us that there is great beauty to be found in our world, and it surprises us sometimes if we take care to fully notice it.

Connection: “Defining moments are social: weddings, graduations, baptisms, vacations, work triumphs, bar and bar mitzvahs, speeches, sporting events”. In addition to these life passages and large group events, smaller moments that we share with others and that more deeply connect us can be quite powerful also.

The Hurn’s suddenly felt connected to a group of hotel employees they did not even know, as well as a strengthening of their own family bonds.

When Wayne and I experienced such beauty high up in that mountain valley it deepened and enriched our connection with each other.

Pride: “Powerful moments capture us at our best – moments of achievement, moments of courage”.

It is easy to imagine the pride the employees of that hotel must have felt because of going the extra mile to make a distraught young boy happy again.

I drove all the way down the side of that mountain without once killing us by driving off the edge of it.

The striking image on the cover of your order of service is of Leshia Evans, a 35 year old nurse and mother of a five year old child, who courageously stood her ground on behalf of her and other people’s right to peacefully protest police brutality against African Americans. Even when confronted with being arrested by two Baton Rouge police officers clad in paramilitary gear, she remained calm and peaceful, and this image of her became iconic of the peaceful movement in which she was participating – a powerful moment for us all.

Leshia Evan’s story brings up another aspect of our defining, memorable moments. Though we have been concentrating on positive powerful moments, it is important to acknowledge that sometimes our defining moments can be those we experience as negative or even painful at the time.

Leshia Evans must have experienced great fear even as she exhibited such pride and courage.

The Heath’s share the story of Lea Chadwell, who despite her love for the animals she helped care for as a veterinary technician, began day dreaming about opening her own baking company.

She found great joy in baking delicious dessert items for others, and eventually, she was able to open her own baking store, which she named, “A Pound of Butter”.

At first she was thrilled, but the store did not make enough for her to leave her veterinary job, so she worked constantly between the two. Additionally, she found that she did not like the organizational and financial management aspects of running a business.

The fun of baking for others was turning into stress and dismay. One day, she realized that in a rush to deliver a wedding cake to a customer, she had left the front door of her empty baking store wide open. In a lightening bolt instant, she had an insight. “I’m making self crazy, and I am not enjoying this”, she thought to herself.

Lea Chadwell closed her store and went back to doing only the job she really loved, caring for animals. Eventually, she re-found her joy in baking for loved ones also.

Sometimes, though admittedly not always, even our negative powerful moments can provide us with insights that may eventually change our lives for the better.

Elevation. Insight. Connection. Pride.

These are the characteristics that comprise our powerful moments, sometimes singularly – more often two or more of them combined together.

The Heaths go into much more detail and provide much more nuance about these in the book than I can cover today, so I’ll close with a few of the larger take aways.

Knowing these elements of our defining moments can help us be more alert for them when they come our way – to slow down and let ourselves experience them, like Wayne and I did during the snowfall.

Now let me admit that I didn’t know these elements at that time, so my pulling over to the side of the road was the likely the fortunate happenstance of not being able to see very far ahead because of the snow.

In fact, Wayne would probably tell you that I can have a bit of a manic personality style and am normally more likely to be like, “Of yeah, wow, that’s very beautiful, now let’s go” and then slam my foot down on the accelerator.

Maybe now that I know these elements, he’ll get to enjoy more beautiful scenery inspired powerful moments, even when I am the one driving.

The music, rituals, sermons, readings, candle lighting, singing together and the many other activities we engage in here at church are intended to engage these elements with the hope of creating powerful experiences that are their best may even be transcendent.

You see, knowing these elements, we do not have to wait for defining moments to randomly come our way, we can create them.

And even in our daily lives away from this, our beloved religious community, you can create them for yourself and those you love.

Like the employees of that Ritz Carlton, you may even find opportunities to create them for people you do not know very well or at all.

And the cool thing is, very often while trying to create a powerful moment for others, we end up experiencing one ourselves as we do so.

Providing extra kindness to elevate a moment or decorating your office at work during a holiday to provide a surprise elevated sensory experience for your fellow staffers.

Searching for insight and listening deeply to others to help them find it.

Opening ourselves up, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and share our stories to create greater connection. Recognizing and slowing down to experience shared moments with others that have the potential to be powerful ones.

Complementing and rewarding the admirable traits and the successes of others to arouse their sense of self pride. Doing the same for yourself, which sometimes can be even harder.

These are just a few examples of how we might engage these elements to create such moments.

Finally, the Heath’s discovered that powerful moments are always active – we gotta do when the spirit says do.

• The hotel employees deciding to do something special for a young boy by staging and taking photos of Joshie the Giraffe.
• Pulling over to the side of the road so that the power of a moment can fully wash over us.
• Standing with courage and pride against a highly armed and highly agitated police force.
• Having the insight and courage to shut down a business that was once but is no longer a dream.

Our powerful moments involve doing. They involve staying alert for the moment. The old truism is still true – We must seize these moments.

Some interesting research found that these powerful moments alter our sense of time. We perceive them as lasting much longer than they actually do and weight how we rate the whole of our experience much more heavily toward them. At their most powerful, we experience them as timeless.

This is one reason that time can seem to go by more quickly as we age. Many of our powerful moments brought on by first experiences are front-loaded into our earlier years – making our first best friend, beginning school, graduating the various levels of schooling, our first love, marriage, having children for example.

We can slow down our sense of time throughout our lives by being alert for and even actively creating defining moments.

Elevation. Insight. Connection. Pride.

These are our tools for creating moments that will allow us to experience a timeless life within the one precious, finite life that we have been given.

So, seize the moments my beloveds, seize the moments.

Amen.

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them here.

Most sermons delivered at the First UU Church of Austin during the past 18 years are available online through this website. You will find links to them in the right sidebar menu labeled Sermons. The Indexes link leads to tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on the topic to go to a sermon.