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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
February 21, 2021
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We know that many folks may be enduring hardship because of the terrible weather and power outages we’ve experienced this last week. We are not addressing these conditions in the sermon today because Rev. Chris has been without power since last Sunday and is still without power as of Friday morning. Because of this, along with travel issues on icy roads, a new sermon was not recorded, and we will be rebroadcasting a sermon that we hope lifts your spirits and brings you a little humor as we all try to thaw out and get our lives going again.

Jim and Jane Henson created their lovable puppet characters over six decades ago, and the Muppets really began to gain prominence in the early 1970s. Through their decades of television and movies, what have the Muppets had to tell us about life, love and creating community?

Chalice Lighting

This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth that we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.

Call to Worship

Play, humor, fun, joy, these are essential to human well-being. Yes, we need our serious sides too, but we can not thrive without these essentials of life.

– C E Limoux

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

Ingrid Fetell Lee “The Aesthetics of Joy”

JOY IS A PROPULSIVE FORCE It’s a curious feature of autocratic regimes that forms of joy are often banned. Music is a common one. In China under Mao, listening to the music of Beethoven was a crime. Folk or traditional music is typically condemned, such as in Nazi Germany, which targeted Jewish music…. Dancing was similarly reviled, and all types of celebration found themselves in the crosshairs of European colonists setting out to spread Christianity and “civilization” around the world. Music, dance, art, eroticism: all of these fuel an emotional response that creates momentum, one that can be hard to control….

So, simply put, joy can be considered resistance because it’s a form of “energy for change,” as Audre Lorde puts it.

Sermon

Swedish Chef Video

I have waited my entire life to begin a sermon with the Swedish Chef doing Rapper’s Delight.

And, choosing this service topic gave me an excuse to wear my new Muppet boots, featuring Animal.

In actuality, I have been thinking about doing this service since back when I was in seminary and having to read many, many, many theology books and write many, many theology papers.

One evening I decided I needed to clear my head of the deep thinking for a bit, so my spouse Wayne and I went out to see a movie.

Thinking it would get me about as far away from theology as I could get, we went to see the muppet movie that was playing at the time that was simply titled, “The Muppets”

By the way, for Unitarian Universalists, theology does not have to involve a God or Gods, though it can. It can also be about a way of thinking about and understanding that which is ultimate, that which is most important for living richly and fully, that which is larger than ourselves but of which we are a part.

Anyway, I am sitting there watching the movie, and I’m like, “Wow, there’s a kind of theology happening here.”

It’s about creating community and struggling together toward a common purpose. The Muppets have always had each other, even when things looked bleak. They stuck together. They stayed in relationship even when they had conflict.

They never let one another give up – they carried each other when needed.

And I sat there thinking, here we have a band of quirky, intelligent, creative oddballs and misfits who somehow find each other and create a caring community where they laugh, cry, play and sing together.

My God, they’re Unitarian Universalists!

I told Wayne all of this. He said, “Shut up and watch the movie.”

I’m joking about that last part. We talked on the way home, not during the movie. We were at Alamo Drafthouse, and the ghost of Ann Richards would have taken us out if we had done so.

Over the past 63 years now, in television programs like “Sesame Street” and “The Muppet Show”, as well as in their movies, the Muppets have modeled spiritual themes rooted in community, belonging and interconnectedness: we can help each other follow our dreams; reconciliation and redemption are possible.

They’ve modeled staying true to yourself and your calling; mysticism and wonder; the effort and the struggle being more important than the outcome; being willing to ask for help when we end it; and to quote one line from the movie, “Life’s a happy song when there’s someone beside you to sing it”.

A while back, I put a public post on Facebook, asking folks, “Over the years, what have you learned about life and living from the Muppets.

Now, I should have known in a mostly Unitarian Universalist crowd that I would get some typically smart aleck responses like:

• • It’s not easy being green.

• • Don’t be a grouch or you’ll end up living in a garbage can.

• • Cookies are good.

• Don’t play with electricity like crazy Harry

The more serious responses all also focused on belonging and relationship. Folks had gotten from the Muppets:

• • The importance of listening deeply to one another.

• • The power of music to turn strangers into friends and friends into family.

• • How friends make life exponentially better.

• • That you might as well embrace life’s weirdness because life is already weirder than you think.

• • Caring and curiosity will make your own life better.

• • Our differences are what make life more interesting and creative.

• • Even with our differences, we can all live on the same street and get along.

• We can all come together and create something beautiful if given the chance.

I loved it that one of church couples has decided that everyone has a “Spirit Muppet” in life (you know, like spirit animals), and they have chosen Ralph the Dog and Grover as theirs.

They decided this after reading about slate. com Supreme Court reporter Dahlia Lithwick’s “Unified Theory of Muppets Types” which theorizes a singular factor that divides us in our society: “Every one of us is either a Chaos Muppet or an Order Muppet. “

Here’s how Lithwick explains her Unified Muppet Theory:

“Chaos Muppets are out-of-control, emotional, volatile. They tend toward the blue and fuzzy. They make their way through life in a swirling maelstrom of food crumbs, small flaming objects, and the letter C.

Cookie Monster, Ernie, Grover, Gonzo, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and-paradigmatically-Animal, are all Chaos Muppets.

Zelda Fitzgerald was a Chaos Muppet. So, I must tell you, is former Justice Stephen Breyer.”

Order Muppets-and I’m thinking about Bert, Scooter, Sam the Eagle, Kermit the Frog, and the blue guy who is perennially harassed by Grover at restaurants (the Order Muppet Everyman)-tend to be neurotic, highly regimented, averse to surprises and may sport monstrously large eyebrows.

They sometimes resent the responsibility of the world weighing on their felt shoulders, but they secretly revel in the knowledge that they keep the show running.

Your first grade teacher was probably an Order Muppet. So is Chief Justice John Roberts.

And in this way, we can understand all societal conflict.

Are you an order muppet or a chaos muppet?

Now, whether or not you buy Lithwick’s “Unified Theory of Muppet Types”, I do think that the muppet characters can be thought of as archetypes that capture some of our human traits and, more specifically, our Unitarian Universalist faith characteristics rather well.

Of course, we have to start with Kermit the Frog, who I think can be thought of as representing our Unitarian Universalist rootedness in rationality and the use of reason. He’s a steadfast thinker and philosopher and a natural leader.

There is a great drive in this part of our faith that leads us to contemplation, discovery and progress in our state of knowledge. The shadow side of it though is that we can get so caught up in our heads that we sometimes do not actually act upon that knowledge.

But either way, how can we keep from loving a frog who does a cover of the Talking Head’s “Once in a Lifetime”.

Kermit Video

In contrast, I think Animal can be thought of us as representing our embodied, emotional, passionate side.

This is the side of us that drives to acting upon our faith but can also result in us being hasty and irrational.

Still, it is where a deep well of compassion and love resides. ÇAnimal VideoÈ

Next, I think Fozzy the Bear can represent how we can enhance our faith by infusing it with a sense of fun, fellowship, joy and humor.

While our faith would become shallow if these were all that it involved, fun, fellowship, joy and humor can very much help us sustain and deepen the other aspects of our spirituality.

Even when the jokes are really bad. Waka. Waka.

Fozzy Video

And then there’s Janice, our guitar rocking, deep thinking, mystical side of ourselves.

I also suspect Janice may be Buddhist.

Janice (and we) though have to be careful sometimes to avoid thinking we’re being deeper than we really are.

Janice Video

I have always loved Statler and Waldorf, the grumpy guys that sit up in the balcony and offer unsolicited commentary.

I think maybe they can be thought of as representing our Unitarian Universalist history of skepticism and questioning.

A healthy dose of skepticism and questing has helped keep ours an honest religion.

I think the danger may be that too much skepticism can devolve into sitting on the sidelines and criticizing the efforts of others in our faith.

Statler and Waldorf Video

And, of course, we cannot leave out Ms. Piggy, who as you heard in our reading earlier considers is a feminist, as well as I think represents that there is probably a spark of Diva along with that spark of the divine within each of us.

In fact, in 2015, Ms. Piggy received the Sackler Center First Award for her feminism from the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum. Gloria Steinem, presented her with the award.

Ms. Piggy has a particular kind of feminism, I think. She embraces her femininity and feminine charm, but is also tough as nails, knows karate and will take you down if you mess with her!

I like to think of Ms Piggy as representing our strong and steadfast commitment to feminism and all struggles for equality and human rights – our affirming and promoting the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

Here’s Ms. Piggy in her own words with some advice on being stylish and living life.

Ms Piggy Video

So, those are just a few of our Muppet archetypes.

My apologies if I left out anyone’s favorite Muppet character. I leave it to you to figure out what archetype they may represent, as well as to discern your own “spirit muppet” if you are so moved.

I am leaning towards Gonzo.

So, to summarize, Muppet theology is about our need for connection, community and belonging.

It is about knowing that creating community can be messy and difficult sometimes, but, if we stay in relationship with each other even during the challenges, we can become our best selves and create something greater than ourselves at the same time.

Muppet theology is about learning that the things that may be our greatest strengths can also be aspects of ourselves that can contain challenges and potential pitfalls.

It is about being there for each other, carrying each other when it is needed, as well as celebrating our uniqueness and our differences.

In these times, wherein cynicism abounds, it occurred to me as I working on this service that the Muppets might seem a bit naive and simplistic these days.

Then I thought, “or perhaps they are expressing some very basic human values from which we can too easily become separated”.

Maybe we could benefit from a return to simple compassion, caring and communality. The Muppets model for us that sense of caring and compassion. They model how if we stay in community, stay in relationship through good times and bad, we can make beautiful music together.

And so it is that I am left with no choice but to close by offering you at least a small part of the Muppets performing Bohemian Rhapsody.

Bohemian Rhapsody Video

And Amen.

Most sermons during the past 21 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link below to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

SERMON INDEX

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link below or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
January 17, 2021
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Our imagination can lead to both wonderful spiritual paths and can take us down paths that can wound our spirits. On the one hand, our imagination helps us dream of a better life for ourselves and a better, more just world for all. Yet, we can also imagine things that are not true and get drawn into harmful cultural myths. Our imagination can also help sense the sacred all around us in our everyday lives.

Chalice Lighting

This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth that we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.

Call to Worship

You can either think that the world is getting better or the future will be much better than it is now or that you can think the world is getting worse. But that continuum isn’t as important to me, actually, as this idea of – Do you think that you have agency in this world that is either getting better or worse. When it come to our futures we have hope, we have fear, but sometimes we forget that we also have influence, and that means we can choose the future we want to work towards. Nothing is written in stone.

– Angela Avantella

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

I’ve decided to exercise my imagination more. I want to build strength and add some muscle to it. But, keep it kind, make it more active and more likely to activate on a moments notice when really needed. So, I’m reading more, emersing myself in stories, myths, poetry, the arts, more often. Rewriting the poems and stories of my childhood sometimes. Permitting my daydreams to take hold, allowing music to enter into my heart and soul, and at times I even dance, poorly, I think, but that’s OK. As I dance my awkward dance I dream not only of a future made better than today, but a present moment suddenlly filled with possibility.

– Chris Jimmerson

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

Most sermons during the past 21 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link below to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

SERMON INDEX

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link below or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

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Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
December 13, 2020
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Sometimes stillness is not so much a lack of motion but rather a moment to find our center so that we can discern where to move next.

Chalice Lighting

This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon 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

Today I’m flying low and I’m not saying a word. I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep. The world goes on as it must, the bees in the garden rumbling a little, the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten. And so forth. But I’m taking the day off. Quiet as a feather. I hardly move though really I’m traveling a terrific distance. Stillness. One of the doors into the temple.

– Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings

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

KEEPING QUIET
by Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.
For once on the face of the earth
let’s not speak in any language,
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines,
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victory with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

Most sermons during the past 20 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link below to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

SERMON INDEX

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link below or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
November 22, 2020
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Often, we can have a tendency to equate healing with being cured – like when we take a prescribed regimen of a medication and then get better. For trauma and other emotional wounds though, healing is more of an ongoing process, sometimes lifelong, whether individually or socially. We will explore embodied ways of approaching such healing.

Chalice Lighting

This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon 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

PARTNERS IN CARE: MEDICINE AND MINISTRY TOGETHER
Fred Reklau

Cure may occur without healing and healing may occur without cure. Cure alters what is. Healing offers what might be. Cure is an act. Healing is a process. Cure seeks to change reality. Healing embraces reality. Cure takes charge. Healing takes time. Cure avoids grief. Healing assumes grief. Cure speaks. Healing listens.

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

INSTRUCTIONS IN JOY
Rev. Nancy Schafer

“MENDING”

How shall we mend you, sweet Soul?
What shall we use, and how is it
in the first place you’ve come to be torn?
Come sit. Come tell me.
We will find a way to mend you.

I would offer you so much, sweet Soul:
this banana, sliced in rounds of palest
yellow atop hot cereal, or these raisins
scattered through it, if you’d rather.
Would offer cellos in the background singing
melodies Vivaldi heard and wrote
for us to keep. Would hold out to you
everything colored blue or lavender
or light green. All of this I would offer you,
sweet Soul. All of it, or any piece of it,
might mend you.

I would offer you, sweet Soul,
this chair by the window, this sunlight
on the floor and the cat asleep in it.
I would offer you my silence, my presence,
all this love I have,
and my sorrow you’ve become torn.

How shall we mend you, sweet Soul?
With these, I think, gently
we can begin: we will mend you with a rocking
chair, some raisins,
a cat, a field of lavender beginning
now to bloom. We will mend you with songs
remembered entirely the first time
ever they are heard.

We will mend you with pieces of your own
sweet self, sweet Soul – with what you’ve taught
from the very beginning.

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

Most sermons during the past 20 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link below to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

SERMON INDEX

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link below or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
October 18, 2020
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Listening deeply is a gift that we can give to others. Even more, it is a gift we can give to ourselves.

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

WHO WE LISTEN TO IS WHO WE BECOME
Rev. Scott Taylor

Sometimes it can become to loud
it is hard to hear those voices
you once knew so well.
Voices that knew you so well.

It is said that silence heals us,
but silence also holds us together.
So pause while we can
while this sweet sweet space gives us room to listen,
to hear the echos of memories that made us whole.
The pain of others that reawakens our hearts.
The beauty of the wild woods that wants us back.

We don’t just listen for clarity and guidance.
We listen to become larger.
Those voices calling us home
are our home.
We don’t have conversations,
we are our conversations.

We must remember, friends,
who we listen to is who we become.

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

I AM GOD, OF COURSE
Rev. Steve Garnass-Holmes

I looked at the tree blossoming in spring
and said, “Who are you?”
And she said, “I am God, of course, becoming beautiful.”
And I beheld her.

I looked at the sea
and said, “Who are you?”
and the same voice said, “It is I, flowing within you.”
And I opened myself.

I listened to the silence
and said, “Who are you?” and she said, “I am holding you.”
And I listened more.

I looked at my troubles and said, “Who are you?”
and I heard: “I am your own broken heart.”
And I wept with gratitude.

I looked at the suffering of the world
and I asked, “Who are you?”
and she said, “I am in labor pains.”
And I moved closer.

I looked at the unknown and said, “Who are you?”
and the silence said, “I am Becoming,”
and I stepped into the darkness.

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

Most sermons during the past 20 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link below to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

SERMON INDEX

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link below or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
September 13, 2020
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

During times of anxiety and stress, we often need more rest. Physical, mental and spiritual renewal can become even more important for us. We’ll explore stories of renewal, ways we might find it and how sometimes when our life circumstances change dramatically, we may be able to reimagine ourselves.

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

“Anyone can slay a dragon,” she told me. “But try waking up very morning and loving the world all over again. That’s what makes a real hero.”

– Brian Andreas (Kai Skye)

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

Excerpted from
THINGS THAT JOIN THE SEA AND THEY SKY: FIELD NOTES ON LIVING
by Mark Nepo (Sounds True, 2017)

By midmorning, I take Zuzu, our yellow Lab, for a walk. It’s there that the trees and birds begin to speak. Or rather, I begin to listen, as they’ve been sharing their secrets constantly. Most mornings, I see birds tending and feeding their young, flying to and fro with twigs, or pecking at the ground for seed. They’re always building and mending their makeshift nests. Much like us, going to and fro to gas up the car, and pay the bills, and get the tools we need to patch the roof. Endless tasks that keep us a part of life.

Today, we went for our walk a little closer to noon. The sun was everywhere and things seemed extra close. Perhaps my mind was more empty and my heart more full, but the tulips just opening and the wind ruffling the budding leaves seemed Eden-like. Then I saw a single bird perched atop the very tip of an enormous blue spruce. So easily balanced, it looked out on the world it would have to return to. Then I saw another perched atop an old oak. The birds pausing from their tasks became silent teachers, saying without saying that we need to fall in love with the ordinary rhythms of life, again and again. And when the tasks are done or have become too heavy to complete, we need to pause and perch atop our worries and concerns. So we can return to the world and do what needs to be done, until what sustains us reveals itself like the inside of a seed cracked by our beak.

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

Most sermons during the past 20 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link below to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

SERMON INDEX

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link below or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

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Rev. 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 Bernstein

Equanimity 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.

Most sermons during the past 20 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link below to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

SERMON INDEX

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link below or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

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Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
July 26, 2020
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Engaging our creativity may be one way we can deal with living through a pandemic and sheltering in place. What are some creative pursuits you might like to engage? How might we creatively enhance our spirituality?

Chalice Lighting

This is the flame of 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

When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap.

-Cynthia Heimel

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

There are, it seems, two muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say “It is yet more difficult than you thought.” This is the muse of form. It may be then that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction, to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings,

-Wendell Berry

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

Most sermons during the past 20 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link below to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

SERMON INDEX

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link below or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

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Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
July 5, 2020
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

In this challenging time through which we are living, it is important that we offer ourselves and others many blessings. Let us comfort one another and accept one another’s comforting. We do not have to pretend everything is ok.

Chalice Lighting

This is the flame of 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

So what then does it it mean to offer a blessing – to be a blessing? To bless something or someone is to invoke its wholeness. To help remind the person or thing you are blessing of its essence, its sacredness, its beauty. And to help remind ourself too. Blessing doesn not fix anything. It is not a cure. It does not instill health or well being or strength, instead, it reminds that those things are already there within us.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

From MY GRANDFATHER’S BLESSING
Dr Rachael Naomi Remen

A blessing is not something that one person gives another. A blessing is a moment of meeting, a certain kind of relationship where both people involved remember and acknowledge their true nature and worth, and strengthen what is whole in one another.

By making a place for wholeness within our relationships we offer others the opportunity be whole without shame and become a place of refuge from everything in them and around them that is not genuine. We enable people to remember who they are.

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

Most sermons during the past 20 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link below to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

SERMON INDEX

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link below or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

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Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
June 21, 2020
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

One of First UU Austin’s stated values is compassion – which we defined as “to treat ourselves and others with love”. What does living out that value look like, especially in these challenging times?

Chalice Lighting

This is the flame of 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

ON THE PATH OF COMPASSION
Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Begin with gratitude
for all you have received,
that you see and that you do not see.
Let your gratitude grow into trust
that you are included in a great wonder;
and entrust yourself to the grace you are given.
Let your trust blossom into compassion
for all those who are also part of this oneness
who have been excluded, used or targeted.
Let your compassion flourish into solidarity,
knowing you are one with those who suffer
and that their wholeness is part of yours.
Let your solidarity bear fruit in justice,
working for freedom and fullness of life for all,
against all evil and oppression.
And when you are most challenged
by the forces of injustice,
most weary and discouraged,
return to gratitude
that you are guided, accompanied,
empowered and saved;
and entrust yourself to the undying love of God.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

GATE A-4
Naomi Shihab Nye

Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning my flight had been delayed four hours, I heard an announcement: “If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately.”

Well – one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there. An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing.

“Help,” said the flight agent. “Talk to her. What is her problem?

We told her the flight was going to be late and she did this.”

I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly.

“Shu-dow-a, Shu-bid-uck Habibti? Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit- se-wee?”

The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the next day.

I said, “No, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just later, who is picking you up? Let’s call him.”

We called her son, I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and ride next to her. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends.

Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her? This all took up two hours. She was laughing a lot by then. Telling of her life, patting my knee, answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies – little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts – from her bag – and was offering them to all the women at the gate.

To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the lovely woman from Laredo-we were all covered with the same powdered sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.

And then the airline broke out free apple juice from huge coolers and two little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they were covered with powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best friend – by now we were holding hands – had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere. And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and I thought, This is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that gate – once the crying of confusion stopped – seemed apprehensive about any other person.

They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too. This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

Most sermons during the past 20 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link below to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

SERMON INDEX

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link below or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
May 24, 2020
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

It seems like we cross into new territory all of the time these days. As we cope with a pandemic, we are in the midst of crossing a threshold, but we cannot yet see what the other side of that threshold may be like. Still, there may be opportunity in the uncertainty. We may have the agency to influence the other side of the threshold.

Chalice Lighting

We light this chalice so that its flame may signify the spiritual strands of light that bind our hearts and souls with one another. Even while we must be physically apart, we bask in its warmth together.

Call to Worship

A PLACE WE ARE CREATING
-John Schaar

The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created–created first in the mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the maker and the destination.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

BLESSING WHEN THE WORLD IS ENDING
-Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons

Look, the world
is always ending
somewhere.

Somewhere
the sun has come
crashing down.

Somewhere
it has gone
completely dark.

Somewhere
it has ended
with the gun,
the knife,
the fist.

Somewhere
it has ended
with the slammed door,
the shattered hope.

Somewhere
it has ended
with the utter quiet
that follows the news
from the phone,
the television,
the hospital room.

Somewhere
it has ended
with a tenderness
that will break
your heart.

But, listen,
this blessing means
to be anything
but morose.
It has not come
to cause despair.

It is simply here
because there is nothing
a blessing
is better suited for
than an ending,
nothing that cries out more
for a blessing
than when a world
is falling apart.

This blessing
will not fix you,
will not mend you,
will not give you
false comfort;
it will not talk to you
about one door opening
when another one closes.

It will simply
sit itself beside you
among the shards
and gently turn your face
toward the direction
from which the light
will come,
gathering itself
about you
as the world begins
again.

Most sermons during the past 20 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link below to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

SERMON INDEX

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link below or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
April 19, 2020
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Sometimes when we hold on too tightly to expectations of ourselves and others, it can lead to added suffering. In these difficult times, what are some of the things for which it might be liberating to let go or at least hold less fixedly?

Chalice Lighting

We light this chalice so that its flame may signify the spiritual strands of light that bind our hearts and souls with one another. Even while we must be physically apart, we bask in its warmth together.

Call to Worship

EARTH TEACH ME STILLNESS
From War Cry on a Prayer Feather
by Nancy Wood

Earth teach me stillness
As the grasses are stilled with light.
Earth teach me suffering
As old stones suffer with memory.
Earth teach me humility
As blossoms are humble with beginning.
Earth teach me caring
As the mother who secures her young.
Earth teach me courage
As the tree which stands all alone.
Earth teach me limitation
As the ant who crawls on the ground.
Earth teach me freedom
As the eagle who soars in the sky.
Earth teach me resignation
As the leaves which die in the fall.
Earth teach me regeneration
As the seed which rises in spring.
Earth teach me to forget myself
As melted snow forgets its life.
Earth teach me to remember kindness
As dry fields weep with rain.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

PERHAPS IT WOULD EVENTUALLY ERODE, BUT…
by Rosemary Wahtole Trommer

That rock that we
have been pushing up
the hill-that one

that keeps rolling back down
and we keep pushing
back up-what if

we stopped? We are not
Sisyphus. This rock
is not a punishment.

It’s something we’ve chosen
to push. Who knows why.
I look at all the names

we once carved into
its sedimentary sides.
How important

I thought they were,
those names. How
I’ve clung to labels,

who’s right, who’s wrong,
how I’ve cared about
who’s pushed harder

and who’s been slack.
Now all I want
is to let the rock

roll back to where it belongs,
which is wherever it lands,
and you and I could,

imagine!, walk unencumbered,
all the way to the top and
walk and walk and never stop

except to discover what
our hands might do
if for once they were

receiving.

Sermon

This month, our spiritual theme at First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin is liberation.

I think many of us never imagined what a different perspective on that term, liberation, we might come to hold during this time of hunkering down and social distancing.

I don’t know about you all, but I am looking forward to the time when we will be liberated from having to practice this sheltering in place – social distancing!

This morning I’d like to talk about some of the ways we might avoid entrapping ourselves with unrealistic expectations during this strange and challenging time through which we’re living. What are some of the things which we might need to let go in order to liberate ourselves from self-imposed anxiety and judgement during this period, when we all have plenty enough stress in our world already?

For me, one of the big ones is letting go of expecting myself to handle moving through a pandemic in perfect fashion.

None of us can do that. None of us has ever had to handle this before. And, in fact, because we are under stress – trauma, all of us are likely a little ADHD about now.

We’re likely to make mistakes we would not normally make. We’re likely to be more forgetful than usual. We’re likely to have less stamina than we ordinarily do.

Last week, I had to don my face mask and protective gloves and head into a Randall’s grocery store, because none of the groceries in our area had any delivery or curbside pick up time slots available. I got my groceries, and a very nice woman bagged them and put them into my cart for me.

I got home, only to discover that several of my items were missing.

“That woman didn’t give me all of my groceries”, I thought to myself.

So off I went, back to Randall’s to march in and demand my missing groceries.

Luckily, I parked right by where I had left my cart, and there, in the bottom basket of the cart was the other bag of groceries right where I had left it when I loaded everything else into the car.

This week, I was back in Randall’s again, for the same reason – no curbside or delivery available.

A woman checking out in front of me, from 6 feet away, was placing her items in a bag with her right hand. The checkout clerk completed the transaction and told her the amount owed.

In a sudden panic, the woman exclaimed, “Oh my God, where’s my wallet?”

Then she turned and saw that she was holding her wallet in her left hand.

She looked at me with embarrassment. I smiled and said, “don’t worry, we have all been doing that sort of thing all of the time. We both laughed together, and it was a blessed relief.

When we are under stress, we are all more likely to make these sorts of absent-minded mistakes. Let’s forgive ourselves and be especially careful when driving – people are accidentally running red lights and stop signs and changing lanes without even looking.

Here is another thing to let go. If any of you are like me and have always strived to be an “A” student, we may need to let go of that for a while too. If we make it though this as a “C” student, we’ll be fine!

I know I’ve sent email messages to the wrong person and texts that were so full of typos they made no sense at all!

To our folks who are trying to work from home, while parenting and providing home schooling, I especially want to say you are doing it well enough. You have been given a nearly impossible challenge.

You get an “A” plus just for the Herculean effort.

Another thing I have been learning to let go is having to be strong all the time – keep that stiff upper lip, as I was taught most of my life in my white, Euro-scandinavian family.

We have to feel the grief, the fear, the anger the stir-craziness. We have to feel all of it in order to move through it.

That doesn’t mean we have to stay there forever, just that we can’t try to stuff it all down and numb it.

We’re all also having to let go of our ideas of separateness. We will only make it through this together, and we can be in it together even while we are physically apart.

And we’re all also having to let go of what was our daily routine. That may be an opportunity for longer-term change. I am trying to start the day with a nice walk instead of immediately looking at the news. Another thing I have had to let go is feeling like I should be doing more I’m trying to be careful with that word “should”. It can lead me into all manner of troubles.

So, those are some of the big ones for me. I invite you to consider what what it might help you to let go, or at least hold a little less tightly.

One final big one for me is learning to live with not being able to have physical contact with other people.

I love preaching and leading worship, but I have discovered during this time, that one of the things I have loved most about my ministry with this church, were the Sundays when Meg, our senior minister, was preaching, and I would be what I’ve called “the floor minister”.

You know how restaurants and retail stores have had a general manger, that would be Meg, and then a floor manager who would move about checking in with people?

That’s kind of what I got to do as a minister on those Sundays – and will get to do again someday.

Move about the church and listen to folks, ask how you’re doing, try to help with any issues you might be having.

I miss being able to shake hands, or hug, or put a hand on a shoulder.

But I am learning that love can radiate through a computer screen or a phone call or even an email or text message. Love can travel from six feet apart.

So, even though right now I am doing it through a computer video camera, I am sending you much love.

Even though I am recording this a few days before you will see it on Sunday, the love will still be there.

And I’ll be there too, chatting with you in the comments.

Because the one thing we can’t let go is love.

Not even a virus can quarantine love.

Most sermons during the past 20 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link below to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

SERMON INDEX

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link below or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
March 29, 2020
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Though this is a difficult and challenging time, it also provides us with an opportunity to truly realize our interconnectedness – to know we can only get through this together, even as we cannot be physically together. Perhaps our vision, at least for now, may be less about the future and more about how we can treat ourselves and others with kindness and compassion in this moment and time.

Chalice Lighting

We light this chalice so that its flame may signify the spiritual strands of light that bind our hearts and souls with one another. Even while we must be physically apart, we bask in its warmth together.

Call to Worship

Rev. Chris Jimmerson

It’s okay to sit on the front porch and stare into the blankness. It’s okay to scream into the void. It’s okay to weep into the pillow and pound the mattress. None of us knows how to do this. All of us are here with each other in our hearts and spirits.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Moment for Beloved Community

“Dr. King’s Beloved Community is a global vision, in which all people can share in the wealth of the earth. In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood. In the Beloved Community, international disputes will be resolved by peaceful conflict-resolution and reconciliation of adversaries, instead of military power. Love and trust will triumph over fear and hatred. Peace with justice will prevail over war and military conflict.”

– The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change

Meditation Reading

Dr Amy Acton
Head of the Ohio Department of Health

I can tell you that I already envision a future that is full of hope. I’ve told you my story about how absolutely essential hope is. It’s the one thing that made a difference in a really rough childhood that I had and I feel more hopeful than I’ve ever felt. I actually believe that life is not shutting down right now. Life is not shutting us down, although we’re being quiet now and we’re making that physical distance.

Life seems like it’s shutting down but I feel life is waking us up. I truly see a vision of a future that is brighter than we have known. I say that from all my heart. I just know it in my heart and my soul. So please don’t feel like this is pulling us apart. I believe this is drawing us to each other and bonding us to each other, but it will have to be all of us.

Sermon

Well, it’s been a rough several days, hasn’t it? I know it has been for me. I miss being able to be physically with people, including you all. I’m wearing my rainbow kitties stole for this video because it helps me feel at least a little bit better.

I want to acknowledge the extra challenges those of you who are parents are facing with children at home all of the time because the schools are closed.

One of our church members, Kae McLaughlin posted on Facebook something one of her neighbors had sent out over NextDoor. It went, “Homeschooling is going well. Two students suspended for fighting and one teacher fired for drinking on the job.”

We are all facing challenges during this time, and we do not know yet how long this time will last. Our minds and our bodies know there is a potential existential threat to ourselves and those we love and care about. And this leads to several things we need to know.

Even as we go about the daily tasks of life, our minds are still processing what is happening in the background. Our bodies are producing a flood of chemicals that would normally prepare us for fight or flight in the face of danger. Only this is a danger that we cannot see and for which fight or flight do not really help, as we all have to shelter in place. Because of all of this, we are likely to tire more easily. We are likely to need more rest than usual. We have to be aware that we may be prone to be more snappish than usual, as those fight chemicals try to find a way to express themselves. I am trying even more than usual to pause before speaking whatever reaction I am having to try to counter this. My spouse Wayne claims I am only being partially successful at it.

Getting outdoors can help. Exercising can help. Connecting with those we love and care about in whatever ways we are able can help – phone calls, the internet, email, texting.

We are likely to experience both a wider range of emotions and to feel them more deeply than usual in times of stress such as this. Know that is normal. Let’s let ourselves feel the emotions. It is part of the way we move through stressful times.

The opposite can be true too though. We may experience times where we just shut down and stare at the wall for a while. Let’s be forgiving of ourselves and of one another during this time.

David Kessler, who along with Elisabeth Kubler Ross wrote about the stages of grief says that grief is one of the emotions we must acknowledge that we are feeling during this time. He says we are feeling grief both over the loss of normalcy and lack of physical connection that we are currently experiencing and what he calls “anticipatory grief.” That’s when we face an uncertain future where we know we may experience even more loss.

He says that our minds can begin racing, imagining the worst possible scenario but that, if we try to fight that and shut it down, our minds will not let us. In fact, trying to do so can cause us more pain.

Instead, he recommends also trying to imagine the best-case scenario to gain some balance.

Kessler says that one of the ways we can best manage our grief is to recognize the different stages of it, though he warns we do not move through them in in any certain order and that we can move back and forth between them more than once also.

See if you have experienced any of the example he gives: He says,

• “There’s denial, which we say a lot of early on: This virus won’t affect us.
• There’s anger: You’re making me stay home and taking away my activities.
• There’s bargaining: Okay, if I social distance for two weeks everything will be better, right?
• There’s sadness: I don’t know when this will end.
• And finally there’s acceptance. This is happening; I have to figure out how to proceed.

Acceptance, as you might imagine, is where the power lies. We find control in acceptance. I can wash my hands. I can keep a safe distance. I can learn how to work virtually.” Kessler says that naming these stages helps us move through them. Kessler adds one more stage of grief that he calls “finding meaning”. I’d like to close by talking about that for a bit.

Now, I know we have witnessed the hoarding of ammunition and toilette paper. I know we have politicians calling on Grandma to sacrifice herself for the good of the capitalistic economy.

I want to tell you a few stories of somethings my spouse Wayne and I have also witnessed lately though. I had to go to Randall’s a couple of days ago because we had run out of groceries at the house. And even though there were these bright red lines we had to stand behind at the checkout counter and signs everywhere telling us we had to stay at least six feet apart, people were greeting complete strangers as they passed one another, asking how each other was doing and really wanting to hear the answer. People were checking with the store employees to ask how they were fairing and thanking them for being there. A man who had a lot more items than I did offered to let me go before him at the checkout.

Wayne was at our neighborhood convenience store and saw a woman give the store clerk her cell phone number and invite him to call her if needed.

We live on a cul de sac, and the other night, someone down the street went into their yard and started playing their clarinet. Pretty soon, a woman at one of the other houses came out into her yard with her two young daughters and joined in by playing a saxophone. Then, a young man and his family came out into their yard, and he joined in with his guitar. And so, our neighbors provided us all with a free, impromptu jazz concert.

That’s the meaning we may be finding despite these difficult, difficult times. The ideology of dog eat dog, everyone for themselves will not get us through this and is being shown to be a failed ideology.

Instead, we are finding our interconnectedness in ways that we never have before. We are discovering that we will need each other to get through this. We are finding ways to make music together, even from a distance, both literally and metaphorically. Let’s do that in this congregation.

Stay connected.

Reach out to one another.

If you go to austinuu.org and click on the calendar, you will see several opportunities we are providing to connect online through Zoom.

Reach out to Meg Barnhouse our senior minister and to me. The best way to do that is through email. Meg.barnhouse@austinuu.org and chris.jimmerson@austinuu.org. We both have our church email on our cell phones and check it frequently.

Meg and I both love this congregation with all of our heart and to the depth of our soul.

We will get through this together.

Amen.

Most sermons during the past 20 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link below to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

SERMON INDEX

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link below or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
March 8, 2020
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Wisdom is more than just knowledge. In fact, sometimes we have to unlearn things to have greater wisdom. Sometimes wisdom is found in uncertainty, making mistakes and the ineffable experience of our interconnectedness with the interdependent web of all existence. Sometimes wisdom is found in experiences deeper than just the cognitive.

Chalice Lighting

At this hour, in small towns and big cities, in single rooms and ornate sanctuaries, many of our sibling Unitarian Universalist congregations are also lighting a flaming chalice. As we light our chalice today; let us remember that we are part of a great community of faith. May this dancing flame inspire us to fill our lives with the Unitarian Universalist ideals of love, justice, and truth.

Call to Worship

-Hafez

The beloved sometimes wants to do us a great favor, hold us upside down and shake all the nonsense out.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Moment for Beloved Community

“Dr. King’s Beloved Community is a global vision, in which all people can share in the wealth of the earth. In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood. In the Beloved Community, international disputes will be resolved by peaceful conflict-resolution and reconciliation of adversaries, instead of military power. Love and trust will triumph over fear and hatred. Peace with justice will prevail over war and military conflict.”

– The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change

Meditation Reading

-Marcus Borg

It happened as I was driving along through a sunless rural Minnesota landscape. The only sounds were the wind and the drone of the car. I had been on the road for about three hours. The light suddenly changed. It became yellowy and golden and it suffused everything I saw: the snow covered fields left and right, the trees bordering the fields, the yellow and black road signs, the highway itself. Everything glowed. Everything looked wondrous. I was amazed.

I had never experienced anything like that before unless perhaps in very early childhood and so I no longer remembered it. At the time I felt the falling away of the subject-object distinction of ordinary every day consciousness. That dome of consciousness in which we experience ourselves as in-here and world as out-there. I became aware not just intellectually but experientially at the connectedness of everything. I saw the connectedness, experienced it. My sense of being in here while the world was out there momentarily disappeared. That experience lasted maybe a minute and then faded, but it had been the richest minute of my life. It was not only full of wonder but also filled with a strong sense of knowing, of seeing more clearly and truly than I had ever had.

Sermon

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

– Albert Einstein

This month, our religious education classes and activities are examining the concepts of awakening and wisdom.

How do we awaken our wisdom? How is wisdom different than knowledge?

I’m betting that many of you, like me, have been following the developments with the coronavirus with some degree of concern, so I thought I would start with a little wisdom from our public health officials on how to try to contain the spread of viruses.

While there is certainly no reason to panic at this point, there are some practical things we can all do.

First if we are sick with cold-like symptoms we should stay home.

We’ve placed flyers all around the church with information on proper hand washing and other sanitary measures we can all follow, such as covering our mouth when we sneeze or cough and keeping food preparation areas sanitary.

We also found a formula for making our own hand sanitizer and ordered the ingredients to do so because pre-prepared sanitizer has been sold out pretty much everywhere. We will place it around the church as soon as the ingredients come in.

Another thing we can all do is become aware of not touching our hands to our faces. We all tend to this a lot without realizing, and it is one of most common ways that we end up infecting ourselves with something.

The Center for Disease Control has recently advised that older adults and folks with severe chronic illnesses stay at home as much as possible. They don’t define what they mean by “older adults”, sorry.

If you do make the decision to stay at home and would like to watch the church services via the internet, church staff will be happy to show you how to access the the video if you do not already know how to do so.

I also have a service which would allow me to talk with you over video on the internet if we needed to so during the week.

And finally, though many of us enjoy shaking hands or hugging each other, let’s please display our affection for one another with elbow bumps instead for the time being.

The management team here at the church will continue to monitor the situation very closely and will let you know if any further precautions become necessary.

OK, public health announcement over, so back to wisdom.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German theologian, pastor and anti-Nazi dissident once wrote,

“Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than evil is. Against evil, one can protest; it can be exposed and, if necessary, stopped with force. Evil always carries the seed of its own self-destruction, because it at least leaves people with a feeling of uneasiness. But against stupidity, we are defenseless.”

Current theologian and minister, Tim Suttle writes that he is seeing a disturbing similarity in modern day America’s lack of wisdom, as that of the German’s in Bonhoeffer’s time.

Suttle notes that what many Americans lack is not knowledge. Instead, there is a refusal to apply that knowledge in wise ways and to dismiss as fake new any knowledge that contradicts our prejudices.

Witness the denial of so many about the growing possibility for global climate catastrophe.

Suttle says that contemporary America has lost several types of wisdom.

First – The wisdom of compromise. He writes, “Only fools believe in win-at-all-costs situations.” It is not that we need to sacrifice our values – but he notes that we gain wisdom through relationship with each other, particularly those with different Life experiences and world views. We can do more together than we can from within our ideological trenches.

Second – The wisdom of change. Trappist monk and mystic, Thomas Merton once said, “If the you of five years ago doesn’t consider the you of today a hectic, you are not growing spiritually.” Yet so many remain entrenched in dogma and ideology, never learning, never growing. Growth and wisdom always involve change.

Third – The Wisdom of Fidelity. By fidelity, Suttle means staying engaged with each other even when we disagree or make mistakes and being willing to work for the good of society over and above what we want for own lives.

Fourth – The wisdom of suffering. Suttle says that we gain wisdom through our hurts and our mistakes. None of us can really avoid suffering in life, but too many of us try to numb it through the use of drugs, alcohol, television, habitual shopping, smart phone binging, etc.

And finally – The wisdom of uncertainty. So much wisdom arises out of mystery and paradox – in having the humility to recognize how much we really do not and cannot know.

I loved that reading from Marcus Borg that Leo shared with us earlier. There is sense of mysteriousness and paradox in these ineffable experiences of interconnectedness and oneness that so many of us have had.

And I think those experiences bless us with a wisdom that goes deeper than rational knowledge and move us toward acting with more compassion and wiseness in our world.

So ultimately what I think Suttle is trying to get at is that too many Americans have lost that sense of our interconnectedness and the many forms of wisdom to be found within it.

I would add to Suttle’s list several other sources of wisdom.

Sometimes wisdom can come from sorting through our rational knowledge to find what is really useful and strip away what is not. As our call to worship put it, “shake all the nonsense out.”

Paying attention to what our bodies are telling us and getting in touch with our emotions are also a part of awakening our full capacity for wisdom.

This is a lesson I have had to learn more than once. For instance, after my step-father, Ty, who had been more of a father to me than my actual dad, after Ty died in April of 2015, I found myself just feeling numb.

There was a sense of unreality.

And for a couple of weeks, it was as if I completely shut down emotionally.

I went though the routines of life and my ministry here at the church, but I couldn’t feel anything much less locate the pleasure and joy I normally get from life and ministry.

And then one day, I was talking with Meg, and I realized that what was happening was that I had been depressed. That for me, depression isn’t a feeling of sadness; it’s feeling nothing.

It was only after this realization, after I finally let myself fully experience my grief and sorrow over losing my step-dad that the depression began to lift.

It was only after I let myself have a good cry or two that I began to also the able to feel gratitude and joy and happiness again.

So our wisdom arises from our whole selves, our reasoning and know ledge, yes, but also our physical and emotional selves.

And, as I mentioned briefly earlier, but it is well worth repeating, our wisdom also comes from being willing to take risks and make mistakes. Sometimes our mistakes are our greatest teachers.

So, as artist and writer Debbie Millman puts it, “If you are not making mistakes, you’re not taking enough risks. Make new mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody has ever made before.”

I think we can also find a special sort of wisdom within the metaphors contained in our stories, myths and poetry.

There is wisdom to be found in our music and drama – in our rituals and the arts.

All of these help us to grasp and understand life’s complexities in ways we cannot with only literal thinking.

This is the error, in my opinion, that too many people make by trying to read the bible or other sacred texts literally and thereby missing or even distorting the metaphorical wisdom such texts often contain.

For me, getting out into nature can also shift my thinking to this bigger picture, more metaphorical form of contemplation.

OK, we have now come to the portion of our service where I harp on the importance of spiritual practices, as I have been and will be doing each time I preach this year.

Spiritual practices, meditation or gardening or knitting, whatever you find connects you with the greater wisdom that is already within you, also help us become even wiser because these practices can also help to shift our perspective on life.

So sometimes our knowledge doesn’t change through our spiritual practices, but our understanding of that knowledge, our worldview, does.

Likewise, our readings and hymns and music and rituals and, I hope at least sometimes our sermons, here in worship at the church may provide us with new knowledge or insights but can also just help us shift our perspectives around knowledge we already had.

And this is likely more true the more we can engage, once again with our whole selves, intellect, physical and emotional. And his capacity to grow wisdom I think is there throughout the life of the church.

Certainly I believe our wonderful teachers and other religious education folks, along with our public forum folks, are helping people of all ages to cultivate greater wisdom.

When we work together for social justice and against all fonns of oppression, we encounter difference, which, in turn, can enhance our own wisdom and shift our perspectives once again.

Our work for the environment reminds us of the wisdom that we are indeed not separate from the interdependent web of all existence but a part of it.

Our First UU Cares Council teaches us the wisdom of caring for each other.

Our Fun and Fellowship and our games night remind us of the wisdom that we need fun, friendship, community, joy in our lives.

Our art gallery, Paradox Players, our many musical programs bring these special sources of wisdom to us.

Well, I could go on and on but there are about another 80 or so ministry teams and church programs I haven’t mentioned yet, so I better stop now.

My point is that as a religious community, in these and so many more ways, I believe we can and do help each other grow our wisdom.

Today is International Women’s Day, so I would be remiss if I were to fail to mention that in Proverbs of the Hebrew Scriptures, God’s wisdom is personified as Woman Wisdom or Sophia.

Sophia, Woman Wisdom, hearkens back to the Tree of Life. She was there at the very act of creation, frolicking in God’s presence and taking delight as God fashioned humanity, the heavens and earth, placing true wisdom within the interconnectedness between the many elements of God’s creation.

So my fellow guys, let us ponder in the days to come over what metaphorical truth Proverbs may be trying to teach us.

I’ll leave you with a poem by Unitarian Universalist minister Leslie Takahashi. It is titled, “Labyrinth”.

“Walk the maze within your heart: guide your steps into its questioning curves.
This labyrinth is a puzzle leading you deeper into your own truths.
Listen in the twists and turns.
Listen in the openness within all searching.
Listen: a wisdom within you calls to a wisdom beyond you
and in that dialogue lies peace.”

Here, as a religious community, may we walk the maze of life together.

Here, in this sacred place, may we help each other find the wisdom within us that calls to a wisdom beyond us.

Amen and blessed be.

Benediction

– Khalil Gibran

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry,
the philosophy which does not laugh,
and the greatness which does not bow before children.

Most sermons during the past 20 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link below to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

SERMON INDEX

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link below or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
February 23, 2020
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Sometimes it takes grit and determination to stay resilient in times of challenge. Sometimes, though, like the trees, we need to be able to bend but not break when strong winds gust – change, but also hold onto our core selves, like when the river changes course around obstacles in its path. Always, we need each other to weather life’s challenges.

Chalice Lighting

At this hour, in small towns and big cities, in single rooms and ornate sanctuaries, many of our sibling Unitarian Universalist congregations are also lighting a flaming chalice. As we light our chalice today; let us remember that we are part of a great community of faith. May this dancing flame inspire us to fill our lives with the Unitarian Universalist ideals of love, justice, and truth.

Call to Worship

by Adrienne Rich

My heart is moved by all I cannot save:
so much has been destroyed
I have to cast my lot with those
who age after age, perversely,
with no extraordinary power,
reconstitute the world.

Affirming Our Mission

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

Moment for Beloved Community

“Dr. King’s Beloved Community is a global vision, in which all people can share in the wealth of the earth. In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood. In the Beloved Community, international disputes will be resolved by peaceful conflict-resolution and reconciliation of adversaries, instead of military power. Love and trust will triumph over fear and hatred. Peace with justice will prevail over war and military conflict.”

– The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change

To deepen our reflection on the meaning of Beloved Community and the challenges we still encounter for building it, each week we have been asking folks to consider something that is may be outside their realm of experience.

Kevin was 17 when he fled Honduras with his sister. After their grandmother had died, they had been left parentless, and the gang MS-13 forced them to work for it at threat for their lives.

When the gang told Kevin he would have to kill a stranger to prove his loyalty, he and his sister made the decision to flee to the United States.

He was captured at the border and placed into a shelter run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is responsible for providing care for underage immigrants.

As a part of that care, he was offered psychological counseling, which he understood would be confidential.

He met with a therapist and talked about all of the things the gang had forced him to do or witness.

Little did he know, that under a new Trump administration policy, his therapist’s notes would be passed on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who would use it to declare him a danger to society and argue for his detainment and deportation.

He has now been in detention for over 950 days while his legal case plays out.

One has to wonder if they would have done the same to a teenager from, oh, say, Finland.

What must it be like to have a vulnerable counseling session used against you in a legal setting?

As we struggle with this, let us remember there is no need to immerse ourselves in guilt or shame. In fact, these can be counterproductive, as we need joy and community to sustain our struggle to do justice and build the beloved community.

There is beauty to be found in the struggle itself.

Meditation Reading

GRACE
by Chris Jimmerson

When she was a young girl, they told her that Grace was only available to her, a child of original sin, through the forgiveness and whim of an all-powerful God.

Then, she sat with her Grandfather as he was dying. She held his hand, as she and the ones she loved stayed with him through his great passage.

And she felt Grace arise among them.

Later, during her college years, she volunteered for the local refugee shelter. And one day she witnessed the counselor work with young children traumatized by war.

She heard the children begin to speak their truths with one another, in that language that is only fully understood by such children, and she watched the counselor put his plans aside and let the children begin to heal one another.

And she felt Grace radiate between them.

And as over and over again through her years, she witnessed this same emergence between and among people, she came to understand Grace as something we co-create, and, sometimes, something we allow to happen by simply getting out of the way.

Sermon

“Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.”

“You’re stronger than you think.”

“What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

How many of you have heard one or more of these platitudes about human resilience?

The problem with them, besides the fact that they’re platitudes, is also that they center our resilience solely upon each of us as individuals. However, in reality our ability to remain resilient in difficult circumstances greatly depends on communal relationships and social support.

That’s not to say that there are not practical things we can do as individuals to build our personal resilience, and I’ll talk about some of these later.

It’s just that too often we forget that when we face challenges, we do not have to face them alone.

We have each other. We are a part of something much larger than ourselves.

As our religious education chaplain and communications coordinator, Bear Qolezcua put it in one of his wonderful Weekly Faith Connections bulletins, “These are the moments in which we are blessed to remember that we are part of the great, interdependent web of life upon which all things strum a rhythm of living and love and hope and sorrow and joy and pain and loss and newness.”

So this morning, as we consider the spiritual topic of resilience, which our religious education classes and activities have been exploring this leap year month of February, I want to start by stressing the relational, communal and social aspects of our resilience.

One group of psychologists who study resilience define it this way: “Resilience is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress .. .It means ‘bouncing back’ from difficult experiences.

However, Eric Greitens, former navy seal, humanitarian, author and ex-disgraced, shortterm Republican governor of Missouri, but hey, wisdom can come from the strangest of sources sometimes – Greitens writes that we do not really bounce back to exactly who we were before.

The parent who loses a child is forever changed.

The nineteen-year old who goes to war comes back a different person than when they left.

Greitens says that rather than bouncing back to who we were before, we move through our challenges.

He writes, “What happens to us becomes a part of us”.

Resilient people find healthy ways to integrate hard experiences into their lives.

And, especially in our most difficult situations, to do that, we most often need relationship with; we need the support of others.

As I began what was supposed to be my final year of seminary in the fall of 2014, my world had suddenly become very challenging.

My spouse, Wayne, had developed a debilitating and life-threatening illness.

I am happy to say he is doing well now, but at the time it was pretty scary.

My step-father, Ty was dying of congestive heart failure. We knew it was only a matter of time. We just did not know how much time he had left.

We were blessed that he actually lived more than a year longer than his doctors had predicted. I was so moved that he was even able to attend my ordination here at this church just a couple of months before we lost him.

On top of all that, the congregation where I was doing a part-time internship that was required as part of my final year in seminary was moving through a great deal of emotional turmoil because of abuses they had suffered at the hands of other ministers.

I began to doubt whether I would be able to complete the school year and graduate.

The seminary was a long distance program, where I could do much of the studying and work here, but then had to go to Chicago for intensive classes for several weeks three times per year.

With all that was going on, it seemed a high likelihood that I might not be able to be away at some point or that I might have to leave in the middle of classes if the worst happened in any of the situations going on back home.

I also just was not sure I was going to have the emotional stamina to push through the hard work of seminary.

My prior years at the seminary, I had served as the co-chair of the student advisory council, and the school’s president, Lee Barker, had asked me to fill a position that would serve as student representative to the faculty team and the board of trustees.

I realized that I had to call Lee to tell him I could not serve in the position. I dreaded making that call because I was afraid he would be disappointed in me.

Instead, as soon as I told him all that was going on in my life, he said, “Forget the position, you’re what matters. Let’s talk about what you need.”

He gave me such a gift of grace, because he stayed with me where I was as we continued the conversation. He didn’t try to tell me it was OK or that it would be OK because, of course, it wasn’t and he couldn’t make the promise that it would be.

He did tell me that the school would work with me to find ways around it if I had to miss class time or had trouble keeping up with readings and assignments.

He offered to be available to me if at any time I needed to talk more.

And as the school year went on, he helped me find a resilience that I could not have found by myself – a resilience that allowed me to complete that final year of seminary and graduate with my friends and classmates.

Research has found that our resilience is rooted in relationship in several ways.

Positive and supportive social relationships, such as Lee offered too me, are key to our resilience.

As the American Psychological Association puts it, “Many studies show that the primary factor in resilience is having caring and supportive relationships within and outside the family. Relationships that create love and trust, provide role models and offer encouragement and reassurance, help bolster a person’s resilience.”

So building and maintaining relationships and community are vital to our ability to weather life’s inevitable storms.

Next, finding a sense of purpose that involves altruism and working for the good of others is a second way that our resilience is rooted in social connections.

Research has found, it turns out, that when we get involved in contributing to our communities, working for social justice, trying to create a better world, we benefit ourselves, because in doing so we are exposed to different perspectives and life experiences, and we find that sense of purpose. These, in turn, help build our own personal resilience.

Finally, social safety nets increase the resilience of citizens. In countries with strong social safety nets, such as paid parental leave and universal free health care, people are healthier and express greater life satisfaction.

In turn, these seem to make folks in such countries more resilient when they encounter challenges in life.

So, paid parental leave and Medicare for all, ya’ll!

Now, while still stressing that maintaining the social relationships I’ve been discussing is vital, I do want to talk a little bit about what we can do individually to maintain and build our resiliency.

Jane McGonigal is a video game designer who a few years ago suffered a traumatic brain injury that left her with constant headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss and mental fogginess.

Her doctors told her that in order to heal, she had to avoid anything that triggered these symptoms – no reading, no email.nowork.no running, no writing – basically none of the activities she loved in life.

She found herself growing more and more depressed. She found herself having suicidal thoughts.

She decided to try to create a game she could play that might help her make it through.

She called the game, “Jane the Concussion Slayer” and invited her twin sister and her husband to play it with her.

The game basically just helped them identify how to battle the “bad guys” – anything that could trigger her symptoms like bright lightsand activate power ups – anything she could do to feel even just a little better like cuddling her dog for a few minutes.

Within just a few days her depression lifted. She still had symptoms of the head injury for another year, but she no longer had suicidal thoughts.

She renamed the game “SuperBetter” and shared it over the internet. She soon found herself receiving messages from around the world from people with a variety medical conditions saying that the game had helped them face their challenges with much less anxiety and depression.

She was curious how such a simple game could be so helpful, so she devoured the scientific literature and discovered what the game was doing was helping people identify simple activities that have been shown to contribute to four different types of resilience.

I want to share with you a few minutes from a Ted Talk that McGonigal presented in which she walked her audience through some very simple activities we can do even several times daily that help build these four types of resilience that she will describe.

I invite you as, in the video, she talks the people in her audience through these exercises to join in with them and do the activities too.

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VIDEO

So, everybody ready? This is your first quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand up and take three steps, or make your hands into fists, raise them over your head as high as you can for five seconds, go! All right, I like the people doing both. You are overachievers. Very good.

(Laughter)

Well done, everyone. That is worth +1 physical resilience, which means that your body can withstand more stress and heal itself faster. We know from the research that the number one thing you can do to boost your physical resilience is to not sit still. That’s all it takes. Every single second that you are not sitting still, you are actively improving the health of your heart, and your lungs and brains.

Everybody ready for your next quest? I want you to snap your fingers exactly 50 times, or count backwards from 100 by seven, like this: 100,

93 … Go!

(Snapping)

Don’t give up.

(Snapping)

Don’t let the people counting down from 100 interfere with your counting to 50.

(Snapping)

(Laughter)

Nice. Wow. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen that. Bonus physical resilience. Well done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 mental resilience, which means you have more mental focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. We know from the scientific research that willpower actually works like a muscle. It gets stronger the more you exercise it. So tackling a tiny challenge without giving up, even one as absurd as snapping your fingers exactly 50 times or counting backwards from 100 by seven is actually a scientifically validated way to boost your willpower.

So good job. Quest number three. Pick one:

Because of the room, fate’s really determined this for you, but here are the two options. If you’re inside, find a window and look out of it. If you’re outside, find a window and look in. Or do a quick YouTube or Google image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”

Do it on your phones, or just shout out some baby animals, and I’ll put them on the screen. So, what do we want to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see what we got. Baby dolphin and baby llamas. Everybody look. Got that? Okay, one more. Baby elephant.

(Audience) Oh!

We’re clapping for that? That’s amazing.

(Laughter)

All right, what we’re just feeling there is plus-one emotional resilience, which means you have the ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions like curiosity or love, which we feel looking at baby animals, when you need them most.

Here’s a secret from the scientific literature for you. If you can manage to experience three positive emotions for everyone negative emotion over the course of an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve your health and your ability to successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. And this is called the three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s my favorite SuperBetter trick, so keep it up.

All right, pick one, last quest: Shake someone’s hand for six seconds, or send someone a quick thank you by text, email, Facebook or Twitter. Go!

(Chatting)

Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. Keep it up. I love it! All right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, which means you actually get more strength from your friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a great way to boost social resilience is gratitude. Touch is even better.

Here’s one more secret for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six seconds dramatically raises the level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. That means that all of you who just shook hands are biochemically primed to like and want to help each other. This will linger during the break, so take advantage of the networking opportunities.

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So just these simple activities, repeated enough, can build our resilience. And if her activities are not workable for someone because of a disability or such, finding some simple way to challenge ourselves in each of those four areas will likely still have the same effect – physical, emotional, mental, and, of course, social.

Now, have I harped on the importance of spiritual practices yet this Sunday?

No? Well, here goes. Yep, it turns out spiritual practices – meditation, prayer, gardening, gratitude journaling, etc. engaging in regular spiritual practices builds our resilience.

Here are some other activities that help us build and maintain resilience:

• Allowing ourselves to experience joy.
• Immersing ourselves in that which we find to be beautiful.
• Laughter and humor.
• The arts, music, poetry.
• Engaging our creativity.

I think sometimes we think of resilience as always meaning being tough, having grit and determination. And that CAN be part of it.

But like those platitudes with which I started, it is not all of the story.

Sometimes resilience means allowing ourselves to feel the grief and rage and sorrow and pain of our situations without falling into immobilization, without losing joy, laughter, humor, beauty.

Sometimes, like the “flag” tree on the cover of your order of service and up on the screens, we need to muster the grace to bend but not break up against the winds of traumatic challenge or dramatic change. And my beloveds, we need each other to do so.

Sometimes we have to have the courage to ask for help.

For after all, we co-create grace in our world together. We grow stronger together.

We build our greatest resilience together.

May this place and this religious community be a wellspring of spiritual resilience so together, we may:

• nourish souls, ours and others,
• transform lives, in our midst and out in our world,
• and do justice, within these walls and beyond them.

Building the Beloved Community requires just such a great spiritual resilience.

Thus, we are blessed to have each other, in this, our beloved religious community.

Amen.

Most sermons during the past 20 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link below to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

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